Patent ID: 8095385

Claim:
A system for identifying sales transactions related to a single customer in a data set received from multiple pharmaceutical outlets, comprising: one or more inputs for receiving patient pharmaceutical prescription information from a plurality of pharmaceutical outlets, said patient pharmaceutical prescription information including information identifying one or more patients and a unique outlet patient identifier for each of said pharmaceutical prescription patients, and for receiving pharmaceutical benefit manager information from one or more pharmaceutical benefit managers, said pharmaceutical benefit manager information including information identifying one or more pharmaceutical benefit manager patients and a unique pharmaceutical benefit manager identifier for each of said pharmaceutical benefit manager patients, said information identifying one or more patients comprising pharmaceutical prescription sales transaction information for said pharmaceutical prescription patients and said information identifying one or more pharmaceutical benefit manager patients comprising pharmaceutical prescription sales transaction information for said pharmaceutical benefit manager patients; an identification assignor, coupled to said one or more inputs and receiving said patient pharmaceutical prescription information therefrom, for providing an internal patient identifier for each of said outlet patient identifiers in said patient pharmaceutical prescription information; a triangulation engine, coupled to said one or more inputs for receiving said pharmaceutical benefit manager information and said patient pharmaceutical prescription information therefrom, for comparing said pharmaceutical benefit manager information to said patient pharmaceutical prescription information, wherein said comparing comprises matching said pharmaceutical prescription sales transaction information for said pharmaceutical prescription patients with said pharmaceutical prescription sales transaction information for said pharmaceutical benefit manager patients, and for; and a storage device, coupled to said identification assignor and receiving said patient pharmaceutical prescription information, said outlet patient identifiers and associated internal patient identifiers therefrom, and coupled to a triangulation engine for receiving pharmaceutical benefit manager identifiers therefrom, and maintaining a table for linking said outlet patient identifiers, said internal identifiers and said pharmaceutical benefit manager identifiers; wherein said triangulation engine further analyzes said records in said table to ensure that each unique pharmaceutical benefit manager identifier is linked to only one internal identifier and modifying said records such that each unique pharmaceutical benefit manager identifier is linked to only one internal identifier.