Making it easier for patients to fill prescriptions without more work for providers

Hilary Hatch: ©Phreesia

Doctors have an ever-growing list of tasks to address during short visits with their patients, including chronic conditions, preventive care and medication management. Increasingly, they're also expected to identify and help address the non-medical factors that impact their patients' health, like access to food, housing and transportation. An individual’s health-related social needs (HRSNs) can have an outsized impact on their physical and mental health, but addressing all of them at once can be overwhelming for providers and patients.

One tangible and practical way to have a direct impact on patients—particularly those who may be struggling with HRSNs—is by focusing on medication adherence, ensuring that patients who leave a medical appointment with a prescription actually fill it.

One in three patients don’t fill a prescription. Among the top reasons are costs and lack of awareness about the medication, according to patient surveys conducted by Phreesia. Our surveys also show that more than one in 10 (11%) patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who stopped taking their COPD maintenance medication did so because of cost, and more than two in five (41%) said they would like information about financial support to cover their medication costs.

HRSNs compound the problem of medication adherence. For instance, a lack of transportation, a social need, can interfere with a patient’s ability to fill a prescription for their medication, a health need. Many patients who are low-income or live in pharmacy deserts—where the nearest drugstore is too far away—struggle to fill their prescriptions. This means that even if they are seeing their provider regularly and know what medication they need to stay healthy, they do not take the medication. The appointment, and the provider’s time, is essentially wasted, and the patient’s health will not improve as it would if they followed their care plan.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Medication adherence starts with meeting patients in the moments that matter. Prompts sent via text or email are a first step to reminding patients of the value of following through with filling their prescription. For patients with HRSNs, information about available resources that ease transportation costs and other financial burdens to filling prescriptions can lower barriers and further support adherence. All of this can be completely automated with technology, so adds no extra work for providers.

Thirty-nine percent of patients don’t understand how prescription-discount services work or how to start using them, according to Phreesia survey data. But price comparison tools can help providers and patients find the best prices and other financial support programs that are available but largely unknown to patients who would otherwise use them.

Mail-order pharmacies are evolving, and major retail pharmacies and technology companies are revolutionizing when and where patients receive their prescriptions. Patients can initiate a digital request to fill a prescription in a few clicks, receive their prescriptions the very same day, and receive additional discounts or coupons.

Dealing with a medical condition that requires taking a daily medication is hard enough and is made harder by HRSNs. Patients with complex conditions that require intensive or debilitating treatment also need social and emotional support resources. Such social support is key to helping patients manage chronic conditions, and for patients with HRSNs, access to a community of support is even more important.

Our research shows that nearly half of patients lack familiarity with patient support programs, and even among those who know about them, only about a quarter have used them. These programs are a vital resource for people who may have questions about their symptoms and side-effects, and once again, technology can help connect patients to them.

We can close the last mile—or five, in rural settings—between patients and the life-saving medications they need, and it doesn’t require a solution that makes more work for the provider. In fact, if a patient is taking their medications as prescribed, it could potentially make follow-up appointments more efficient and improve patient and provider satisfaction.

Additionally, providers are expected to report on a wide range of quality measures, including medication adherence. But even though a patient’s access to a pharmacy is often out of their control, these measures judge a provider based on whether patients are filling prescriptions.

The solutions to these problems already exist. Patients need resources personalized to their clinical risk profile, health needs and HRSNs, presented to them in the moment that matters. Providers don’t need more to do in a short appointment—rather, they need to be able to focus on their patients’ most pressing needs while technology can help improve medication adherence.

Technology is ultimately about improving connection, and digital health tools help patients by connecting them to services that make it easier to fill prescriptions, find financial and social support and take charge of their own health.

Hilary Hatch, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Phreesia’s Chief Clinical Officer.

For more on the National Quality Forum’s Leadership Consortium’s work on social needs, read their report, Social Drivers of Health Data Utilization: Integrating Healthcare and Community Services to Address Health-Related Social Needs.