Carm Huntress, co-founder of RxRevu, recently celebrated six years with the company. Over the past six years, RxRevu’s mission, vision, core values and product roadmap have evolved to meet the ever-changing needs of the healthcare industry. Carm sat down for an interview to reflect on a wide range of topics, including cost transparency in healthcare, why RxRevu is well-positioned to achieve its mission, the importance of putting patients first and the transformative effect that cost transparency will have in the future.
Why is cost transparency in healthcare such an important issue?
Patients and providers today don’t know the true cost of what the patient will pay for prescription medications at the pharmacy. There’s a huge need for transparency to help providers make an informed cost decision and deliver value to the patient. With the rise of consumer-driven healthcare, people are paying a lot more out of pocket. Their employers or insurance plans aren’t covering the costs anymore. Due to these factors, cost transparency is very important. It comes down to informed prescribing, so the patients get the right medications, the first time, at the best prices.
How is RxRevu addressing the issue of cost transparency?
At RxRevu, our number one goal is to give as many providers as possible access to real-time, individual patient cost for prescription drugs. Nearly 80 percent of doctors don’t know the cost of the drug for the patient when they prescribe. At RxRevu, we have the opportunity to change that paradigm. We work with providers at the point of care and also help health systems and payers think about the bigger vision of enabling a more informed, frictionless process of prescribing from a clinical perspective.
What make RxRevu’s cost transparency solutions unique?
We offer a strong set of differentiated features that support the patient and provider while also benefitting the health system. Our solutions help reduce the administrative burden around pharmacy callbacks and prior authorizations and also help providers identify lower-cost options for the patient. It’s all about helping patients and providing value. Our solutions put the patient and provider first, and that’s what sets us apart from our competitors and puts us in a unique position to succeed.
As a healthcare startup, how will RxRevu succeed?
There is no other company that has the right mix of people, experience and investors to get this work done in the right way. It ultimately comes down to people and execution, and I think we do that better than most companies. As a startup, we have the alignment, freedom, agility and speed to achieve our mission and goals.
How does RxRevu live its core values?
Our core tenet is to put patients first. Because we’re in such a complex value chain, where everybody has a specific agenda, this becomes the most important thing we can do. We ask the hard questions. We hold each other accountable. We do the hard work. Every day, we ask ourselves if we are doing the right work for the patient and living up to our values. If we do this well, everything else will take care of itself.
How will cost transparency transform healthcare in the next three to five years?
Some important transformations are taking place right now. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued a drug pricing transparency rule that targets Medicare Part D plans. The rule will require each Part D plan to adopt one or more Real-Time Benefit Tools (RTBT) that are capable of integrating with at least one provider’s ePrescribing system or electronic health record (EHR), no later than January 1, 2021. RTBT have the capability to inform prescribers when lower-cost alternative therapies are available under the beneficiary’s prescription drug benefit, which can improve medication adherence, lower prescription drug costs and minimize beneficiary out-of-pocket costs.
My hope is that we move away from providers memorizing drugs, dosages and durations and see an evolution of technology that brings the data right to the provider. If we can do this, providers will be able to get back to caring for the patient in a more humanistic way. There are challenges, both technically and from a policy and legal perspective to get there, but I would love to see this happen in the next three to five years.
As a leading RTBC content provider, RxRevu is driving this evolution. We are dedicated to improving the value of healthcare through better prescribing decisions. Our SwiftRx® Suite offers three solutions to promote cost transparency, improve patient satisfaction, and promote data-driven medication savings opportunities. To learn more about our prescription decision support solutions, contact RxRevu at contact@arrivehealth.com or visit www.arrivehealth.com.
