With its new partnerships, Wheel is able to connect its customers’ patients with mental health services through Talkspace, home delivery pharmacy services through Cost Plus Drugs and lab and diagnostic services through Health Gorilla.
Blue Shield of California is cutting many of its ties with CVS Caremark (though not all) and adding four additional partners for its prescription drug benefits. These partners include Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company and Amazon Pharmacy. The changes are needed to disrupt the current broken system, said Salina Wong, senior director of clinical pharmacy programs at Blue Shield of California.
Through Scripta Insights’ app, members of its customers can input the medications they’re taking, and the company will provide a savings report that will show different options on how they can save on their prescriptions. Starting in 2024, Cost Plus Drugs may show up as an option in the savings report.
Mail order pharmacies like Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company and Amazon's RxPass are gaining popularity. But they're missing in-depth consultations with pharmacists. Aspen RxHealth is trying to fill this gap and sees itself as a potential partner for mail order pharmacies.
Zócalo Health, a virtual primary care provider designed for Latino patients, recently forged a collaboration with Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs. Now all Zócalo patients have access to Cost Plus Drugs’ prescriptions, and the provider's community health workers have been trained to help walk patients through the process of obtaining medications through the pharmacy.
Through the partnership, the organizations are launching EmsanaRx Plus. The product supplements employers' current pharmacy benefit offerings and provides access to Cost Plus Drugs' discounted medications.
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
A customer of Cost Plus Drugs received an email from the company in October stating that “due to skyrocketing demand,” shipping times have been delayed. Marley Drug, a competitor, said its company has not experienced delays and presented itself as an alternative for Americans.
It is Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company's first collaboration with a health plan. The pharmacy company will not be replacing Capital Blue Cross' existing pharmacy benefits manger, but instead will be an additional option for members to choose.
The patient financial experience in the U.S. is poor — patients have a hard time understanding pricing data and they often face exorbitant prices for care and medications. This problem will only get better if the healthcare industry rids itself of price-gouging middlemen and closed-door price negotiations held by businesspeople, according to a recent healthcare innovation panel.
Specialty drugs reportedly reached 50 percent of all drug spending in 2020, a figure that has increased significantly over the last decade.
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
