Amazon automatically applies prescription drug coupons to orders placed on its site. Publix last month launched a new “prescription savings finder tool” to help connect shoppers with coupons redeemable at its in-store pharmacies. And savings platforms like GoodRx and SingleCare allow you to seek out savings wherever you get your prescriptions filled.
But a health care technology company says cost concerns are prompting Americans to abandon nearly a hundred million prescriptions a year, as they’re missing out on tens of billions of dollars in savings offered by coupons that go unused.
RxUtility, whose goal is to digitally embed prescription savings into every health platform, highlights these missed savings opportunities in a pair of recent reports. Its latest “Medication Affordability Benchmark Report” shows that patients who don’t know how to use or where to find discounts abandon 98 million prescriptions due to unexpected high costs. A companion report, “Healthcare is Losing the Fight for Medication Affordability,” finds that more than $30 billion in prescription drug coupons are available, but less than 10% of them are ever used.
“Often, neither pharmacists or providers are aware that copay coupons for particular drugs exist,” RxUtility found. “Patients walk away from the pharmacy counter because no one has shown them the real price or the real savings.”
RxUtility says it has identified 1,298 manufacturer copay programs, the vast majority of them for drugs with no generic equivalent. The fact that so many patients are still paying full price – or not getting their prescriptions filled at all – indicates that “much of the country’s available savings are simply not reaching patients.”
In ranking the greatest available savings, RxUtility found that users of the psoriasis drugs Skyrizi or Stelara would pay more than $1,000 without coupons – and just $5 with coupons. In advocating for its work making drug coupons more visible and accessible to consumers, RxUtility says these examples show that “access to copay coupons makes a powerful impact on affordability.”
Similar to grocery coupons that encourage the purchase of a product by lowering the shelf price, “drug manufacturers provide copay coupons for high-cost or specialty medications,” RxUtility explains, as “a way to encourage use of these medications by making it easier for consumers to afford them.”
Prescription coupons can be controversial, though, because someone ends up footing the bill for the full cost of these drugs – and that someone, in the end, could be you. While coupons for brand name prescription drugs reduce your price at the pharmacy counter, your insurance company ends up paying the balance. Critics say that can encourage consumers to choose higher-priced brand names over generics, costing insurance companies more, and prompting them to pass those costs back onto consumers in the form of higher premiums.
RxUtility says it’s more concerned with the immediate goal of making prescription drugs more affordable at the pharmacy counter for average consumers, than it is in engaging in that larger debate. “We are not interested in philosophical conversations about whether copay coupons are good or bad for the status quo,” the company explains. “These coupons exist, and while they do, we want every person to know they exist and have the opportunity to use them.”
RxUtility is calling for the entire health care industry to prioritize digital methods of making information about drug savings more transparent and accessible. “Until we give consumers complete visibility into their healthcare costs and options, we will struggle as a country to deliver on the goals of affordable, accessible care,” one of its recent reports concludes. “By deploying tech solutions that increase medication transparency and affordability, the healthcare industry can dramatically reduce the fear and frustration that often accompany a trip to the pharmacy.”
Reducing your grocery bill from $1,000 to just $5 would take a lot of planning and a whole lot of coupons. But RxUtility hopes all prescription customers will be able to do so easily and regularly – no extreme couponing required.
Image source: Bill Smith 
