Amazon’s Bold $5 Prescription Drug Program Is The Future Of Pharmacy

Amazon is taking one more daring step into the world of healthcare, additional solidifying its highly effective footprint within the business-to-consumer “B2C” area. Earlier this week, the tech big introduced its new “RxPass” program, which is a $5 subscription plan that permits Amazon Prime members to get easy accessibility to and free supply for quite a few medicines.

Dr. Vin Gupta, Pulmonologist and Chief Medical Officer for Amazon Pharmacy, explains in his put up: “During the last decade as a training pulmonologist, I’ve seen sufferers with persistent illnesses battle to get entry to the essential medicines they should reside their lives properly. Navigating insurance coverage could be a maze and attending to the pharmacy a burden. Generally that has led to poor outcomes: New medicines don’t get stuffed, refills don’t get picked up, and sufferers undergo. Facets of our well being care system make what must be simple, troublesome. It’s why I really feel so lucky to be part of the change that Amazon Pharmacy helps to deliver to this area.”

The put up goes on to elucidate the small print of the brand new initiative by Amazon: “RxPass [is] a brand new Prime membership profit from Amazon Pharmacy that gives sufferers with reasonably priced entry to generic medicines that deal with greater than 80 frequent well being situations for simply $5 a month. With RxPass, Prime members can get as many eligible medicines as they want for one flat, low charge of $5 and have them conveniently delivered free to their door.”

Certainly, the corporate is making an attempt to resolve a really actual ache level. Thousands and thousands of Individuals (Amazon estimates practically 150 million Individuals) require the identical medicines which can be out there on RxPass. For many individuals, nevertheless, buying these medicines just isn’t a simple course of. Typically, it entails navigating a cumbersome course of with insurance coverage, submitting claims, paying a co-pay, and truly having to go to the bodily pharmacy to choose up the treatment when it’s prepared. RxPass is successfully attempting to take away a variety of these boundaries, particularly by eliminating the insurance coverage element within the course of.

The platform even provides strong customer support: sufferers can name the help line, which may also help instantly coordinate with their doctor’s workplace. If all goes seamlessly, sufferers can anticipate their medicines to reach at their doorstep.

There was a big quantity of consideration within the pharmacy area during the last decade, particularly as the prices of prescription medicines have skyrocketed, typically being a prohibitive issue for individuals to obtain the remedy they require.

One other notable enterprise on this area is being spearheaded by American entrepreneur, early tech investor, media character, and proprietor of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban. Final 12 months, Cuban introduced a revolutionary initiative referred to as the CostPlus Drug Firm—a way to make medicines extra reasonably priced and simpler to amass for Individuals. He explains that “We began Mark Cuban Price Plus Drug Firm as a result of each American ought to have entry to secure, reasonably priced medicines. If you happen to don’t have insurance coverage or have a excessive deductible plan, you realize that even probably the most primary medicines can break the bank. Many individuals are spending loopy quantities of cash every month simply to remain wholesome. No American ought to should undergo or worse – as a result of they will’t afford primary prescription medicines.”

“Whenever you get your medication from Price Plus Drug Co., you’ll at all times know precisely how we arrived on the value you pay. And as we develop and our prices go down, we are going to at all times go these financial savings on to you! We began this firm as an effort to disrupt the drug business and to do our greatest to finish ridiculous drug costs.”

On the core, Cuban and Amazon are tackling a really comparable query: what’s the most handy and reasonably priced approach to enhance individuals’s entry to life-saving medicines?

Whereas each firms will undoubtedly face rising pains within the coming years by regulators, coverage makers, healthcare suppliers, and sufferers themselves, one factor is for certain: each firms maintain unimaginable potential to assist enhance entry to look after thousands and thousands of individuals.