With millions of Americans facing financial hardship, WebMD and Krames have announced a new program designed to connect patients with pharmaceutical assistance programs, which can provide medications at low or no cost to those who cannot afford them.
The program, WebMD Back to Care, comes amid reports of high unemployment due to Covid-19 shutdowns and restrictions, while millions of Americans are de-prioritising non-Covid-19 related healthcare. Visits to physicians for non-Covid-19 care are down sharply, largely due to fear of exposure, but some experts believe that people may continue to avoid routine healthcare and treatments - and reduce or limit their prescribed medications - due to hardship.
WebMD Back to Care was developed to provide information on available patient assistance support for their prescription medications, quickly and seamlessly via a secure WebMD platform. Assistance information on over 1,000 prescription products will be available through Back to Care, and the platform will be continually updated.
The program was designed to be effortless for physicians and caregivers. Through an integration with patient education technologies from WebMD's sibling organisation, Krames, patients receive information about Back to Care automatically as part of patient education materials shared with patients at the conclusion of a doctor's appointment or hospital discharge. More than 1,800 hospitals throughout the US are participating in the program.
Enrollment in Back to Care is done easily via texting a code printed on the patient's discharge information. Once enrolled, patients receive a link to a mobile-optimised Back to Care website, where they can quickly type in their prescription name and identify applicable savings resources. If so, they would be linked to the drug manufacturer for additional support via the manufacturers' patient assistance home pages.
Should the patient be prescribed a generic drug or one without patient assistance available, the program would also deliver a text link to WebMD Rx, a prescription drug discount program, where consumers can type in the name of a medication into the search bar and get a product description and prices for filling it at nearby pharmacies. After finding the lowest price, users can text, print or email a coupon to themselves or download the WebMD mobile app and show the coupon at the pharmacy.
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