Pharmacy benefit manager CVS Caremark is teaming up with GoodRx, a discount pricing company for prescription drugs, to launch a program that aims to reduce drug costs for CVS Caremark members, the companies announced Wednesday.
Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS Caremark is a CVS Health company. GoodRx, based in Santa Monica, California, is a company that allows consumers to compare prescription drug prices and get coupons.
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The companies’ new program is called Caremark Cost Saver, which will become available starting January 1, 2024. Through the program, eligible CVS Caremark commercially insured members will have access to GoodRx’s prescription pricing on generic medications. When a prescription is sent to an in-network pharmacy on behalf of a member, the pharmacist then will submit a claim using the member’s CVS Caremark ID. If a lower price is available via GoodRx for the prescription, it will automatically be applied.
“[Consumers] don’t have to do anything,” said Doug Hirsch, co-founder and chief mission officer of GoodRx, in an interview. “What happens is you have your insurance card just like you normally do, you go to the pharmacy and let’s for sake of the argument just say that your insured benefit is $10, but there happens to be a better GoodRx price, which makes it $6. You won’t even know, you’re just going to present your card and you’ll pay $6. You don’t have to push any buttons, don’t have to fill out any forms, no faxes, approvals, none of that awful stuff.”
The amount paid by members is automatically applied to their deductibles. This is not the case when consumers use GoodRx outside of their benefit plan and is often a “complaint” about the company, Hirsch said.
Through the partnership, CVS Caremark will pay GoodRx a referral fee for its services.
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This is the second partnership of this sort for GoodRx. The company has a similar program called Price Assure with Cigna’s Express Scripts that launched early this year.
CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx control 80% of the PBM market share. When asked if GoodRx plans to also form a partnership with OptumRx, Hirsch responded that “this program clearly has showing signs of success given that the two largest players both are interested in doing a program like this. We have a team that’s working on this and they are getting lots of inbound interest and they’re very busy these days.”
He added that while CVS Caremark’s program is for commercial members, he sees additional opportunities to do programs like this with Medicare.
Ultimately, GoodRx aims to drive savings on prescription drug costs for consumers, Hirsch said.
“This is a great way [to do that] because we’re going right to the source, we’re going right to the benefit card that’s in your wallet,” he said. “We’re going to continue to work on ways not just to provide savings on generics, but also brand drugs.”
Other companies aiming to reduce the cost of prescription drugs include the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company and DiRx, both of which are primarily direct-to-consumer companies that cut out pharmacy middlemen to offer more transparent prices.
Photo: z_wei, Getty Images
