Patients are no longer only patients, in the sense that their care is no longer solely in the hands of different healthcare providers as well as insurance companies. The healthcare landscape is evolving rapidly. Increased regulations and new mandates are being imposed, while at the same time the rising cost of healthcare is forcing patients to incur their highest out-of-pocket costs ever. As a result, patients are seeking to take more control over their healthcare. They are becoming healthcare consumers. This transition has been happening over several years, but even with patients taking a more active role in healthcare choices, they continue to face an increased cost burden associated with receiving care, undergoing medical procedures and filling prescriptions. They want — and deserve — to know exactly what they’ll be required to pay for their prescribed medications, the specifics of their insurance coverage and what other therapies might be more cost effective.
According to a 2016 Gallup survey, 27 percent of individuals in the United States identified either healthcare or medication affordability as the country’s “most urgent health problem.” Given this fact, and the patient consumerism it has led to, it’s clearly past time the health information technology industry started helping providers of healthcare become trusted guides for their patients to navigate the cost of medications, while mitigating the stress from the illness being treated along with the uncertainty associated with being able to purchase their prescribed medication(s).
Much of this challenge falls on the payer and the life sciences industries that focus on helping to increase the efficiency and manage the cost of healthcare. As these key stakeholders’ partner with HIT companies, together they can provide patients, healthcare providers and pharmacists with the actionable data and information they need to help make fully informed decisions about what medications are best — with and without the benefit of insurance — so the patient isn’t blindsided at the pharmacy counter. With transparent solutions and applications, physicians can more easily build and maintain trust with patients. After all, if patients feel their physicians are on their side, helping them make the best clinical and financial decisions, they are more likely to follow up with the physician and ultimately become more engaged with all aspects of their healthcare journey. Ultimately, we can begin to see better clinical outcomes at a lower cost of care.
It is important for these solutions and applications to simplify the role of the pharmacist where possible. Today, pharmacists are expected to manage many more medications, complex indications and a complicated payment system. Addressing these challenges will help pharmacists reduce the time spent dealing with unnecessary back-and-forth communications between the pharmacy and healthcare practice. By mitigating these laborious efforts, administrative difficulties are avoided, placing the patient back in the center of both the physician’s and pharmacist’s focus.
According to recent Veradigm study, 85 percent of healthcare providers believe giving patients as much information, at the point of patient care, as possible regarding pricing and insurance boosts patient satisfaction. Because of this and other observed positive effects on patient financial savings and practice efficiency, the adoption of Veradigm’s TruePriceRx™ price transparency solution has been rapid, with more than 17 million transactions covering more than 1.7 million patients during the past year. As patients’ roles in their own healthcare continue to evolve, now is the time to invest in solutions that ensure the right information is in the right hands, at the right time to achieve the best possible clinical and financial outcome.
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