On January 24, 2018, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) launched a new website, LetsTalkAboutCost.org. The new website aims to provide consumers with easily understood information about the cost and coverage of medicines.
The website utilizes an interactive quiz format to educate consumers about medicine spending and pricing trends, insurance coverage of medicines, the biopharmaceutical supply chain, the role of hospital markups and other health care cost issues.
The website asks questions such as “Who decides what I pay for my medicine?” and then answers them directly after. For example, the answer to that question is listed as “While biopharmaceutical companies set the list price for a brand medicine, more than one-third is rebated back to payers and the supply chain. Insurers negotiate large rebates, but do not share these discounts with patients who pay a deductible or coinsurance — a percentage of costs a patient is responsible for paying out of pocket — for their medicine. Ultimately your insurer determines what you pay for your medicine out of pocket.”
The website also includes a blog with topics like how private-sector collaboration can lead to cost savings and care improvement and links to some of the various ads and resources PhRMA has compiled on the topic of prescription drug costs.
It is an informative and helpful website and one can only hope that patients and caretakers take the time to review the website and educate themselves on the topic to discern fact from fiction on the hot topic of drug pricing.