Launch! – GoodRx Prescribes a Cure for High Drug Prices
Most of us don’t clip coupons or scour the Internet for the best prices on medications, but GoodRx’s Web and iPhone offerings make bargain shopping for prescriptions as simple as comparing prices for flights or HDTVs. The company participated in the Launch! panel at the Health 2.0 San Francisco 2011 Fall Conference, narrowly missing out to Basis for the best product launch of 2011.
Today the company released some concrete examples of how both the insured and the uninsured can benefit from using the application. The above table shows just a few of the examples, and the savings are apparent. Spending three or four dollars for drugs instead of $40+ out of pocket or a $10 dollar copay means that everybody can save — even those who have insurance. GoodRx advertises typical savings of 20-80%, and looking at this table, that seems like an entirely reasonable claim.
The news here is that GoodRx, performing the data aggregation we have all come to expect from Web 2.0, can have an impact on health care costs and can help bring transparency to the system. GoodRx is not only a cost saving tool, but it gives doctors an easy way to explain drug pricing and the difference between generic and brand name products to patients, when used in the office.
I spoke to GoodRx and the company would very much like to get payors on board by integrating their pricing into the system, but payors’ systems need to become a lot more accessible before that can happen. GoodRx’s offering shows how much promise there is for smart and talented people to transform health care from the outside. Unfortunately, it also highlights how much work needs to be done before we get a truly transparent and patient optimized system.
The Launch! panel is a staple of Health 2.0 conferences and will be part of our next event, Spring Fling: Matchpoint Boston in May. Apply here with your new product!
About Launch!: Launch! is a series of hand-selected, rapid fire, 3.5 minute product demos from new and buzz worthy companies. All companies or products are making their debut at Health 2.0, and will not have been seen anywhere else. At the end of the presentations, the audience votes for a winner, who is awarded an invitation to present at the 2012 Health 2.0 Fall Conference in SF.
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