Your doctor could be prescribing you a medication that’s not best for you because of bad pricing information – and neither you nor your doctor nor have any clue.
It’s stunning, but true: When doctors and other prescribers dial up a prescription, their computer shows them the patient’s estimated cost after insurance. That price tag can motivate doctors to prescribe a pill because it is cheaper than the competition, or to pick a generic because the name-brand drug they prefer is costlier.
Surprisingly, those cost estimates are often incomplete. There are two main reasons for that:
- Doctors offices e-prescribe through their Electronic Health Record system. It shows price comparisons for various drugs that treat the same disease. But there are over 600 EHR systems. They can show different prices and some provide no cost guidance at all.
- Most importantly, data in EHRs typically doesn’t account for other programs that can cut prescription costs, like manufacturers’ discounts and co-pay cards. In about two-thirds of cases, patients can actually cut their pharmacy bill by using those options.
Because insurance is (incredibly) often not the cheapest way to pay for a prescription, doctors are often (unknowingly) prescribing pills with pricing data that doesn’t reflect reality.
The good news? We can change this. And we’re starting to.
At @rxlink-inc we’ve already integrated with doctors offices so they see all the price options available in their EHR. Those same pricing options are then provided directly to the patient so they know the cheapest way to pay for a prescription, saving them money.
We’ve heard from clinicians that they have begun writing scripts for more suitable medications – the ones they really wanted to prescribe – after seeing they were more affordable than they thought. And, brands see the benefits of more patients benefiting from their therapies because they’re aware of the discounts and support already in place.
We know from surveys that 40% of doctors would prescribe a branded pill over a generic if there were no cost difference. The problem is they don’t know what they don’t know.
We started this company to help patients navigate the brutal healthcare system. We don’t talk enough about how hard it is for doctors to do the same.
When you help doctors, you help patients.