Pharmacy Pricing Without the Confusion

Chances are high that you’ve been here before: you go to the doctor for an ailment, an affliction that’s easily combated by rest and the proper prescription.

You get the prescription information and drive to the nearest pharmacy to pick it up. They hand you the bottle of pills — and the accompanying price tag.

This is the part where many Americans end up walking away from the pharmacy counter without the medicine they need because of prohibitive costs.

Multiple publications this year have shared the stories of diabetic patients who have rationed their insulin due to its cost, resulting in difficulty functioning or even death.

This is just one common example of the life-threatening effects of pharmaceutical drug pricing, effects that your employees are subject to under traditional health benefit models.

Unfortunately, the skyrocketing prices of pharmaceutical drugs is an ongoing trend. A quick look at the 20 most expensive retail drugs of 2018 makes it clear why some patients are choosing to simply go without. The demand for most drugs is not likely to disappear, meaning that Big Pharma can continue setting their own prices and profiting off patients.

The result is that expenditures on drugs has nearly doubled since the 1980s. Most of the time, consumers are not even aware of their options, being left to navigate confusing and expensive drug pricing on their own.

This is a problem that could be prevented at multiple levels, and the Health Rosetta offers the groundwork for the process. First of all, ensuring that primary care physicians have a full grasp on patients’ entire health picture in order to only prescribe medication as needed automatically cuts back on costs at all levels.

Second, transparent pricing would offer clarity in advance on what medications are affordable. When Captiva partners with your business, they educate you on pricing options, allowing you to assist employees in shopping around for the best pricing on necessary prescriptions.

This removes the confusion and guess work, allowing for informed decisions and lowest possible prices. Even giants like CVS have started to understand how much this could improve the process, recently announcing that they will be rolling out their own prescription benefit plan to improve pricing simplicity and transparency.

Finally, it’s important to understand that improving pricing transparency would save money not just for consumers of prescription drugs, but for their employers providing benefits as well. With employees educated and able to choose the lowest cost options for treatment, benefit providers would be paying out less to keep their employees covered. Cutting back on the confusion in the process would ultimately streamline the process at every level.

To find out more about how we can partner with you in overcoming pharmaceutical confusion, contact Captiva Benefit Solutions.

Pharmacy Pricing Without the Confusion is courtesy of: Captiva Benefit Solutions