HealthJoy, Cost Plus Drugs Partner To Reduce Drug Costs for Employers

Healthcare costs for employers are on the rise, and a large part of that is due to pharmacy expenses. Through a new partnership announced last week, HealthJoy and Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (Cost Plus Drugs) hope to expand access to affordable drugs for employees.

Chicago-based HealthJoy is a care navigation platform for more than 1,800 employers. Through the partnership with Dallas-based Cost Plus Drugs, the company can now direct the employees of its clients to the drug company when it offers a cheaper option for generic drugs. Cost Plus Drugs cuts out pharmacy benefit managers and negotiates directly with drug manufacturers. It then offers a transparent pricing model that includes a 15% markup for its operations, pharmacy labor expenses and shipping expenses.  

“Members are truly coming to us and saying, ‘Hey, I’ve been on this medication for a while and I’d like to find a lower cost alternative.’ Or, ‘I was just prescribed this. What’s the best and most cost-effective way for me to get it?’ Our team is basically integrated with the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs team so that we’re steering [employees] over to them when it makes sense,” said Doug Morse-Schindler, president and co-founder of HealthJoy, in an interview at the HLTH conference last week.

HealthJoy is able to point people to Cost Plus Drugs through its Rx Savings tool, which is free to all members and their families. In addition, HealthJoy’s concierge team is able to find cost savings for members and can assist them in accessing Cost Plus Drugs for lower-cost generics. 

Members will purchase their prescriptions from Cost Plus Drugs via cash pay, according to Morse-Schindler. He added that the partnership is just a “value-add” for clients and there is no economic benefit for HealthJoy. The company claimed that the collaboration could reduce employers’ generic pharmacy spend by 50%.

This comes at a time when employers’ projected healthcare cost trend for 2025 is 8%, and pharmacy costs are a major contributor, according to a recent survey from the Business Group on Health. In 2023, the median percentage of healthcare dollars spent on pharmacy was 27%, the same survey found. In addition, pharmacy benefit managers are receiving a lot of scrutiny from the federal government, and the FTC recently sued CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx over insulin prices.

“There is definitely a shift within the pharmacy vertical to go more towards this transparent model,” Morse-Schindler said. “I think there’s a few players that are really leading the charge there. … Because the overall cost of pharmacy is becoming so much more of an overall piece of the pie, you’re going to see more and more people looking for alternatives like Mark Cuban or maybe like a more transparent PBM itself.”

He added that through this partnership, HealthJoy ultimately aims to improve awareness of what’s available to members. Employers often struggle to engage employees and communicate the benefits they offer.

Cost Plus Drugs’ CEO, Alex Oshmyansky, noted in a statement that its “commitment to transparent drug pricing has always been unwavering, and with HealthJoy we are dedicated to providing affordable and accessible healthcare solutions for all.”

HealthJoy is not the only navigation company serving employers. Others include Accolade and Quantum Health. The latter also recently launched a solution that addresses drug costs called the Premier Pharmacy navigation solution. There are also other companies that are cutting out pharmacy middlemen like Cost Plus Drugs, such as DiRx.

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