How GoodRx Can Help Your Patients
Key takeaways:
Since 2011, GoodRx has helped save people over $65 billion on brand-name and generic prescription medications. Users saved an average of 82% on retail prices for prescription medications in 2021 alone. Additionally, over 55% of prescriptions filled using GoodRx (including our Gold and Kroger membership savings programs) were cheaper than the average commercial insurance copays for the 100 most purchased medications, based on industry data.
GoodRx discounts have improved medication adherence from 39% to nearly 66% for commonly purchased medications. This has led to people filling at least 184 million prescriptions that they otherwise couldn't afford, reducing ER visits and hospitalizations.
GoodRx savings free up funds for other necessities, allowing patients to put that money toward essentials like healthy eating.
People can use GoodRx as a one-stop shop to save on both brand-name and generic medications. Through partnerships with drug manufacturers, GoodRx also helps connect users to the lowest available price for their brand-name medications.
GoodRx simplifies health information with an online tool, GoodRx Health. It aims to boost health literacy so that healthcare is easier to use and understand and improve health outcomes.
GoodRx was founded to help people save money on their prescription medications and improve drug price transparency by allowing people to shop for the best price. And since our start, we have significantly altered the landscape of prescription medication access and pricing information.
In fact, since 2011, GoodRx has helped save people over $65 billion on their brand-name and generic prescriptions. These savings have a ripple effect that permeates the healthcare industry, from patients to healthcare professionals (HCPs), and throughout the whole system.
Below, we walk through findings from our recent report, The GoodRx Effect, and discuss the many ways in which GoodRx can help your patients.
Instant Rx savings for insured and uninsured patients
GoodRx for HCPs has savings that can beat insurance copays and reduce your need to complete prior authorizations.
GoodRx is NOT insurance. GoodRx Health information and resources are reviewed by our editorial staff with medical and healthcare policy and pricing experience. See our editorial policy for more detail. We also provide access to services offered by GoodRx and our partners when we think these services might be useful to our visitors. We may receive compensation when a user decides to leverage these services, but making them available does not influence the medical content our editorial staff provides.
GoodRx helps patients save money on their prescriptions
The first and perhaps most obvious way that GoodRx has helped patients is by saving them money on their prescriptions. With GoodRx, they can be confident they are getting a better price, whether they decide to bill insurance or use GoodRx discounts.
The challenge
It’s no secret that medications are expensive, even for those who have insurance. According to a 2022 survey, 43% of working-age adults are inadequately insured. Many of them are forced to bear the weight of their medical costs.
KFF research also found that:
61% of Americans report taking at least one prescription medication, and 27% report taking four or more prescription medications.
82% of Americans feel that their prescription drug costs are “unreasonable.”
18% of Americans taking one to three prescription medications have difficulty affording them, while 37% of Americans taking four or more prescription medications have difficulty affording them.
Finally, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports that retail prescription drug costs accounted for 9% of total healthcare spending in 2022, which is approximately $1,000 for every person in America.
All of this leads to higher healthcare costs for your patients, which can cause them to delay or even skip their medications. In turn, they may have worsening health, which adds costs to the healthcare system overall.
How GoodRx has helped
In 2021, GoodRx users saved an average of 82% on retail prices for their prescription medications. These savings help patients, regardless of insurance coverage or status, save on their medications — for example, if insurance doesn’t cover their medication, they’re still paying their deductible, or they don’t have insurance at all.
And these savings add up: GoodRx has helped about 10 million users save over $200 off retail prices for their prescriptions in the last year.
These savings help millions of patients — even those with insurance. In fact, in the last year, approximately 50% of the 100 most purchased prescriptions filled using GoodRx (including our membership savings programs) were cheaper than the average commercial insurance stated copays, based on industry data.
When GoodRx users paid less than the average commercial insurance copays for these most commonly purchased medications, they saved on average about 50% off average commercial insurance copays.
People with Medicare can save using GoodRx, too. Last year, GoodRx users saved on average 24% off the average Medicare initial coverage copay for the 100 most purchased medications when their insurance copay was more expensive than GoodRx.
GoodRx helps improve medication adherence
GoodRx also helps patients by improving medication adherence. By reducing prescription costs, GoodRx helps patients start taking and continue taking the medications you prescribe.
The challenge
High prescription drug costs can force patients to make hard choices. Often, patients choose not to take their medications to save money.
In fact, one study found that 32% of adults have been denied insurance coverage for a prescribed medication, and more than 46% of those patients ended up not filling the medication. And, in a recent GoodRx survey, 39% of adults taking prescription drugs reported at least one change in their medication adherence over the last year due to cost.
How GoodRx has helped
We estimate that GoodRx discounts have improved adherence (the proportion of days covered when a person has access to their medication) from 39% to nearly 66% for the most commonly purchased medications. What’s more, 41% of prescriptions filled using a GoodRx coupon in the last year were newly adherent, meaning they would not have been filled without GoodRx. Since the founding of GoodRx, we have helped our users fill at least 184 million prescriptions that they otherwise would not have been able to afford.
GoodRx also helps patients remain adherent to their brand-name medications, which may have higher out-of-pocket costs. We have expanded savings on brand-name drugs by working with manufacturers to integrate brand-name medication savings programs into our platform. These include copay cards and cash discounts. According to a survey of people who used GoodRx to save on their brand-name medications, 61% would have had to skip or delay filling their prescription without GoodRx.
These efforts also help HCPs like you improve their patients’ access to the newest and most innovative treatments. In fact, nearly 100,000 HCPs have used GoodRx to view and share manufacturer savings programs with their patients in the last year.
By helping HCPs and their staff find the best price for brand-name medications, GoodRx provides a useful tool for cost of medication conversations that will ultimately help patients adhere to their prescribed treatment.
Better adherence leads to improved health outcomes and less healthcare waste
The medications patients struggle to afford are critical to their health. They can prevent the consequences of their chronic illnesses, like visits to the ER and hospitalization. By reducing financial barriers to adherence, GoodRx discounts help improve long-term health outcomes.
The challenge
Every year up to 125,000 deaths are caused by medication nonadherence. And nonadherence leads to approximately $77 billion in avoidable hospitalizations and ER visits in a single year. What’s more, researchers estimate that a $10 increase in the out-of-pocket cost of a prescription can result in 33% higher mortality among newly eligible Medicare patients.
How GoodRx has helped
By helping make medications more affordable, GoodRx helps people access and stay adherent to their prescribed medication regimen and maintain their overall health. This is especially clear with conditions for which adherence can significantly impact health outcomes, like high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, depression, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
In fact, GoodRx savings last year led to reductions in hospitalization rates ranging from -1.1% for adults under 65 filling COPD medications, to -6.8% for adults over 65 filling high blood pressure medications.
What’s more, since 2012, GoodRx savings have contributed to at least 590,000 fewer ER visits and 336,000 fewer hospitalizations for COPD, depression, diabetes, and major adverse cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke.
In doing so, GoodRx has helped save the healthcare system $5 billion in avoidable hospitalization and ER visit costs, saving patients over $145 million in additional out-of-pocket costs. These savings not only reduce wasteful healthcare spending but also trickle down to help patients better afford and manage their health.
GoodRx savings free up funds for other necessities
Medication prices can drain money that Americans need for essential expenses. GoodRx leaves more money in patients’ pockets that they can use to take care of everyday living costs.
The challenge
One survey reported that about 4 in 10 adults in the U.S. currently have medical debt, with 6% of adults owing over $1,000. U.S. families cite healthcare costs as a top financial worry, with 44% of people concerned about affording their health insurance deductible.
The financial burden of healthcare prevents people from affording essentials for daily life and ultimately forces them to make difficult decisions on how to spend their money.
How GoodRx has helped
By using GoodRx, patients can free up money for other things.
For example, one study estimated that it costs $45 extra each month to eat healthy. This is less than the average savings of $72 per prescription filled using GoodRx. By spending those savings on eating healthy, those patients can further improve their health. In some cases, healthier eating might even reduce their need for medication.
These savings can have a multiplier effect throughout the economy. Money that would have been spent on prescriptions can now go toward other important purchases, like food, housing, electricity, education, and transportation.
Studies show that more money in people’s pockets can benefit health and lead to other positive outcomes, regardless of how it’s spent. When budgets are less constrained, people can make better choices with what they do with their money.
GoodRx makes healthcare easier to use and understand
Many find the American healthcare system complex and difficult to navigate. In fact, 62% of consumers feel that the healthcare system is set up to be confusing. We cannot increase access to healthcare without giving people the tools to understand and engage with their care.
The challenge
Health literacy is a significant problem in the U.S. The CDC defines personal health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.” Health literacy can apply to healthcare, disease prevention, health promotion, and healthcare costs.
How GoodRx has helped
GoodRx provides resources — both online and offline — that make it easier for people to engage with their health and access healthcare at a price they can afford. Our focus on cost transparency and simplified health information aims to improve health literacy so that healthcare is easier to use and understand.
To help people make sense of health, we created GoodRx Health, an online tool that has provided high-quality, easy-to-understand health information to 11 million people on average each month in the last year.
Since its inception, GoodRx Health has been read by people from all 50 states. Our audience includes patients, caregivers, family members, healthcare professionals, and policymakers. People aged 55 and older, who account for 56% of total healthcare spending, make up about 58% of our readers.
The bottom line
GoodRx does a lot more than just help people in the U.S., and your patients, save money on their medications. By reducing medication costs, we help them keep taking their medications, which in turn improves health outcomes and reduces overall healthcare spending.
The savings produced from GoodRx can also help families — especially those who need the savings the most — afford basic necessities, including food and housing.
Why trust our experts?
References
Bosworth H., et al. (2014). Medication adherence: A call for action. American Heart Journal.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). What is health literacy?
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2022). National health expenditures 2022 highlights.
Change Healthcare. (2021). The 2020 Healthcare Consumer Experience Index.
Collins, S. R., et al. (2022). The state of U.S. health insurance in 2022. The Commonwealth Fund.
Kirzinger, A., et al. (2023). Public opinion on prescription drugs and their prices. KFF.
Lopez, L., et al. (2022). Americans' challenges with health care costs. KFF
NPR. (2020). Life experiences and income inequality in the United States.
Pignatti, C., et al. (2023). The effects of an unconditional cash transfer on mental health in the United States. IZA.
Prieto-Merino, D., et al. (2021). Estimating proportion of days covered (PDC) using real-world online medicine suppliers’ datasets. Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice.
Rakshit, S., et al. (2022). The burden of medical debt in the United States. Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.
Rao, M., et al. (2013). Do healthier foods and diet patterns cost more than less healthy options? A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open.
