Surescripts Expands Network for Real-Time Prescription Benefit Coverage

"Heartbreaking" and "frustrating" are two words that likely come to mind when pharmacists encounter the three in ten patients who cite cost as the key reason for not taking their medications. "Time consuming" might be another apt descriptor, since the typical pharmacist will spend about 20 minutes helping a patient find an alternative medication.

Help has arrived though, with the Real-Time Prescription Benefit solution from Surescripts. Pharmacists can rely on the Surescripts solution for critical benefits that include:

• Real-time access to medication covered by patients' plan formularies. This allows the pharmacist to know immediately if a prescribed medication is covered, and what a patient's out-of-pocket costs will be.

• List of covered alternatives. If a prescribed medication is not included in a patient's formulary, or if the out-of-pocket costs are excessive, the solution will provide a list of as many as five alternative medications when available.

• 30-day and 90-day fill rate options.

PrimeRx™ pharmacies can integrate directly with Surescripts Real-Time Prescription Benefit from the PrimeRx™ homepage. This allows immediate access to patient plan information. The Surescripts solution is one of roughly 100 third-party interfaces available to PrimeRx™ users, that allow pharmacies direct access to the industry's most innovative and responsive technology solutions.

Not surprisingly, the Real-Time Prescription Benefit solution has been widely popular. At the start of this year, the solution was embraced by major insurance plans accounting for more than 175 million patients. Since then, the solution has continued to see tremendous growth – namely the addition of 64.6 million patients. This brings the total to almost 242 million patients for whom the Surescripts solution can access plan information.

242 million patients!

That's almost 75% of the total U.S. population.

Pharmacists can expect measurable benefits that include:

• Time savings/Enhanced Productivity: Increased staff productivity as patient issues are immediately resolved with accurate, comprehensive plan information. Pharmacists can have the information they need in a matter of seconds – the same information that previously required manual research and multiple phone calls.

• Improved Adherence Rates. Since patients will no longer leave the pharmacy without their medications, pharmacy owners can expect increased dispensing rates, and increased revenue.

• Enhanced patient loyalty. Patients already hold their community pharmacists in high regard but going the extra mile to help them obtain their medications will bolster patient loyalty. This in turn will improve the likelihood of a patient turning to the pharmacy for not just prescriptions, but for immunizations and other pharmacy services, as well as OTC products.

To learn more about Real-Time Prescription Benefit from Surescripts, or to schedule a demo, please click here.