The digital transformation of personal health is well underway, from monitoring our heart rates with digital watches to blood tests to find the optimal calorie intake.
HR leaders who want to help employees improve their overall well-being can connect members to digital resources, educate them on using these tools, and design benefit packages with digital access in mind. Here are three ways digital tools help employees improve their health and find prescription savings.
1) Members can take the lead on driving down drug costs.
While most prescriptions are for affordable generic medications, 15% of prescriptions for expensive brand and specialty drugs accounted for 89% of plan spend for RxBenefits clients in 2022. Members can help cut costs for themselves and their benefits plan by talking to their doctor about prescription options.
Easy-to-access information about a patient’s formulary coverage and drug prices can help members have conversations about which prescriptions are the best option for them while they’re in the doctor’s office. Members should look for apps and websites hosted by their pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager to determine drug coverage and pricing. When in doubt, consulting with a pharmacist or specialist can lead to a prescription of equal effectiveness without a budget-busted price tag. Employees can find coverage information and requirements for prior authorizations using the pharmacy benefit manager’s app.
Prescription discount apps and websites can offer price comparisons, but your employees need to know about tools connected to the benefit. While your employees may be able to find lower prices outside of the pharmacy benefit online, they may lose clinical oversight, and their expenses won’t count toward their total out-of-pocket or deductible.
2) Staying on track with prescriptions improves overall health — and there’s an app for that.
Pharmacy benefits are the most-used health benefit, and staying on track with medications undeniably improves health outcomes. By simply remembering to take their prescriptions daily, your employees can have a better quality of life, live longer, and reduce healthcare costs for themselves and the plan.
Digital reminders are now built into pill caps and organizers. Some apps like Medisafe and Mango Health remind members to take their medications and vitamins regularly.
Pharmacy-specific apps and websites can be used to manage prescription refills, and many medical providers now offer telemedicine and online medical portals to facilitate conversations about prescriptions.
Help your members make the most out of their telehealth visits.
3) Member portals help members find prescription information when they need it most.
People expect fundamental information to be available online; banking, food purchase and delivery, and other everyday activities are done electronically. The expectation is no different for prescriptions, and portals make prescription benefits more efficient to manage and accessible. From accessing a digital prescription card to checking the status of a prior authorization, a member portal can make it easy to get prescription information quickly.
Educating your employees about available portal tools is essential to smoothly integrating these tech solutions into their daily activities.
- Tell employees about the types of information they can find and what actions they can take inside the portal.
- Encourage members to keep contact information up to date. Members need answers to their prescription questions quickly, and sometimes, something as small as an old email address can interfere with timely treatments.
- They should also keep passwords and login information secure and accessible. Getting locked out of a medical website can not only slow down communication — it can add stress. A password management app like Keeper can securely store and manage login credentials.
