EP284: When Prescribers Know How Much a Drug Will Cost Patients at the Point of Prescribing, With Carm Huntress, CEO and Cofounder of RxRevu

In this Episode 284, Stacey Richter talks with Carm Huntress, CEO and cofounder of RxRevu, about what happens when prescribers know how much a drug will cost patients at the point of prescribing.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why real-time drug price transparency tools are entering the EHR and e-prescribing workflow right now

✅ Who benefits — and who has an interest in shaping the picture — when a PBM-owned platform shows prescribers the price

✅ How showing total cost, patient cost, and alternatives at the point of prescribing changes physician behavior

✅ Why specialty drugs pose a particular challenge for price transparency tools

✅ Why every stakeholder in this system, PBMs included, has some kind of conflict of interest

WHY THIS MATTERS

Carm Huntress explains how tools like RxRevu let prescribers see drug costs and lower-cost alternatives right at the point of prescribing, sparing patients the frustration of showing up at the pharmacy to discover their prescription is unaffordable. But this transparency wave comes with a wrinkle: Surescripts, which just launched a similar real-time price tool, is owned by several large PBMs, and the copay amount shown is itself a number the PBM controls. That doesn't make the tools bad, but it does mean prescribers should pay attention to the patterns the data reveals — like whether the cheapest option always happens to be at a PBM-owned pharmacy — and keep asking questions in the spirit of genuine transparency rather than accepting the numbers at face value.

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

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00:00 Introduction.

04:25 The protracted way doctors prescribe drugs right now.

06:15 "What is the macro thing we want to have happen here?"

08:10 Where we are today.

08:38 Value-based contracts.

10:10 Who is hurt by higher-cost alternatives.

12:50 The number one thing doctors get out of drug cost transparency.

13:20 The second thing doctors get out of drug cost transparency: patient satisfaction.

13:55 The downside to drug cost transparency.

14:40 "We gotta back up and just say, 'What do we want?'"

16:30 How real-world evidence is going to affect drug pricing and rationalization.

17:43 "They're waking up to the new world."

20:20 How copays play into this.

20:45 "What's the total cost, what's the patient cost, and what are the alternatives?"

22:00 The history of formulary and benefit.

26:41 The problem with specialty drugs.

29:30 "Can we just start with first principles here?"

29:40 "We don't really think about socio-economic factors."

29:43 "What can you really pay?"

31:00 Why do IDNs care about drug pricing transparency?