Pharmacists Can Now Sing a New Tune When Patients Ask About Cost

How much is this medication going to cost?

“It’s probably the most-asked question we get,” says Mehul Khakhkhar, owner and operator of Upgrade Pharmacy in Addison, Ill. “The reality is, pharmacists don’t have access to costs without taking additional steps. Wanting that information up front is reasonable, but we haven’t had access to it.”

Until now.

Thanks to Surescripts new Real-Time Prescription Benefit tool, pharmacists can finally address prescription cost concerns with access to patient-specific benefit information, out-of-pocket prescription costs, and therapeutic alternatives at the point of dispensing.

Real-Time Prescription Benefit empowers pharmacists to seamlessly collaborate with patients and prescribers— in the dispensing workflow -- to find the right medication that is clinically appropriate, benefit-specific, and affordable, which is music to Khakhkhar’s ears. “This tool saves a ton of time and resources for our staff, from processing prescriptions, then reversing them, wasting supplies, returning meds to stock … Real-Time Prescription Benefit makes it so much more efficient.”

Half of patients report that they have not taken a medication because it was too expensive, and 3 in 10 have not taken a prescription because it took too long to fill, according to the Surescripts Prescription Price Transparency and the Patient Experience survey. “Patients start treatment for a chronic disease state and, often, we notice that, even if the prescription is on auto refill, they are still not able to successfully adhere to regimen. Those conversations revolve around high cost of copays and medications,” Khakhkhar explained.