Ask HN: System linking discount drug cards to pharmacy or doctor?

1 points by lscore720 9 years ago | 2 comments

Not everyone knows that drug manufacturers offer discount cards on their websites. Occasionally the doctor's office will give you the heads up, which is nice. But there's a huge information gap here and it can cost people meaningful amounts of money.

I wish there existed (if there doesn't already) a notification system that links these discounts with the doctor's office (or pharmacy, though that might conflict with their interests). When they pull up the medicine to prescribe, the discount card information automatically pops up and a print out is shared with the patient. Maybe a more advanced system would determine the patient's eligibility based on his/her profile and send the discount request/card directly to the pharmacy.

I'm just a sales/marketing/finance guy with the technical acumen on par with advanced primates, so I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the feasibility of this technology. I appreciate it.

smt88 9 years ago |

Many doctors' prescriptions default to the generic option. I think this is actually the law in many states: the patient gets the generic drug unless the doctor (or patient) specifically ask for the brand name.

The notification system you're describing would need access to doctors' records and/or pharmacy records, as well as patient contact info. That's absolutely red-hot information from a security standpoint. It's not cheap or easy to build a system to hold that information, let alone act on it by contacting patients.

It's a substantial technology problem, but it's doable. It's currently an insurmountable sales/education/legal problem.

(I know a lot about this area because some good friends of mine tried and failed to build a company based on the idea of getting brand-name Rx discounts into patients' hands.)

lscore720 9 years ago | |

This is really helpful, thanks for explaining!