GoodRx’s Medicine Cabinet solution reminds users to take their medications and refill their prescriptions.
Prescription discount company GoodRx unveiled a new solution Thursday called Medicine Cabinet, which will help consumers manage their medications.
Santa Monica, California-based GoodRx is a company that allows consumers to compare prescription drug prices and get discount coupons that can be redeemed at local pharmacies. Medicine Cabinet is now integrated into GoodRx’s app on iOS (Android will follow in a couple of months). The solution includes an “Action Center,” which provides the vital information users need to know for that day, such as the medications they need to take or if they need to order a refill. This is meant to support consumers who are managing multiple medications.
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Medication reminders can be sent at the time the user is supposed to take the medication. In addition, users can see information about all of the medications they’re taking in one place on the prescriptions dashboard, which shows the prescription number, physician contact info, the date of the next refill and the pill image. The information will automatically be added when the prescription is filled using GoodRx, but users can also add prescriptions that are filled outside of GoodRx.
“That Action Center and Medicine Cabinet overall were born from fairly common experiences a lot of Americans face,” said Mark Hull, chief product officer of GoodRx, in an interview. “Two years ago, my stepfather had a heart attack. … When he came out of the hospital, he had just a long list of drugs that he had to remember to take, and the way he managed them is he had this yellow pad of paper with drug names and tally marks next to [them].”
The solution also analyzes the user’s prescription list to recommend pharmacies offering the prescriptions at the lowest price.
Users of the solution can receive rewards points each time they use a GoodRx coupon or pick up their prescriptions on time. These points can be redeemed for discounts on their prescriptions or for digital gift cards from different retailers, like Starbucks.
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“[The rewards] help encourage those healthy behaviors,” Hull said.
Apple and Amazon both also offer solutions to help patients stay adherent with their medications, but what sets GoodRx apart is its discounts on prescriptions and rewards system, Hull declared. Another solution that supports medication adherence is MediSafe, though this one doesn’t appear to offer discounts or rewards either.
While Medicine Cabinet is free to consumers, GoodRx receives a referral fee from PBMs when their coupons are used at the pharmacy. The solution will encourage more consumers to use GoodRx coupons, Hull believes. Medicine Cabinet is for both those who have insurance and those who don’t have insurance.
“The way that [Medicine Cabinet] helps our business overall is that it’s helping us build a relationship with consumers over more of their healthcare journey,” he stated. “As more people are using this to manage their condition, they are refilling more often, they are adding more prescriptions into GoodRx. Those parts are key to our business. We make money basically when somebody uses one of our coupons at the retailer. … People will be doing that more frequently as a result of using Medicine Cabinet.”
The launch of Medicine Cabinet comes at a time when about half of all Americans don’t take their prescriptions as prescribed. Common barriers to medication adherence include cost and not understanding medications. GoodRx aims to address these barriers.
“The thing we’re doing may have started with great discounts,” Hull said. “But we want to give you a lot more tools to help manage your health conditions.”
Photo: GoodRx
