From Powerless to Empowered: Solving the Drug Cost Conundrum for Patients, Prescribers and Pharmacists

Picture this: A doctor and their patient are looking at a computer screen. The doctor explains the available medication options, including the exact out-of-pocket cost associated with each, based on the patient’s specific drug benefit. The patient says, “I am OK with $10 today, but if it’s $50, I can’t do it.” They choose the $10 option. The patient picks up her medication and begins treatment later that day.

It sounds simple enough, but this crucial cost conversation is only possible when everyone—not just the prescriber—plays their part. Otherwise, what should have been a drug cost conversation becomes a drug cost conundrum: a patient who needs her medication but can’t get it because of the cost. Her condition worsens, she ends up in the emergency department, and is admitted to the hospital.

And then come more bills that she also can’t afford to pay.

She feels powerless, defeated and abandoned by a healthcare system she trusted to meet her where she was—both physically and financially.