Relentless Health Value

There is a transparency zeitgeist kicking off right about now. In June was the biggie, the one where health systems now have to divulge their contracted rates with insurance carriers starting January 1, 2021. But this zeitgeist is flowing into drug prices as well. Surescripts just released their real-time prescription price transparency tool. This price transparency tool allows detailed cost and alternative drug information to be seen in real-time. Surescripts, by the way, is owned by several large PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers). Can the prescriber see how much drugs will cost the patient as they are writing the prescription? The answer is yes if that prescriber is using a tool to display the prices in their EHR (electronic health record) or e-prescribing system. That is pretty cool and could save a whole lot of rigamarole and time for both the prescriber and the patient who doesn’t now have to go the whole way over to the pharmacy to figure out the drug price is unaffordable. I just want to bring up one po