Surescripts, six EHR vendors, CVS Health and Express Scripts revealed a new joint effort on Tuesday to deliver data about prescription benefits and pricing to clinicians at the point of care.
The goal is to advance shared decision-making among doctors and patients by enabling prescribers to see a specific patient’s health insurance coverage and how much a given drug will cost. From there, Surescripts said the prior authorization will be completed with the EHR workflow and the prescription sent to the pharmacy.
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Electronic health record makers — Allscripts, Cerner, GE, Epic, Practice Fusion and Aprima — will integrate such benefit and price information about specific individuals and suggest therapeutic alternatives when appropriate. In addition to CVS, Express Scripts is also participating.
Taken together, the EHR makers and pharmacy benefit managers comprise 53 percent of U.S. doctors and nearly 66 percent of patients.
Tuesday’s public announcement comes after a yearlong pilot that generated 3.75 million transactions in which benefits and pricing info was delivered to prescribers, the company said.
The participants have committed to delivering this service, which incorporates Surescripts Real-Time Prescription Benefit, Prior Authorization and e-Prescribing technologies, by 2018, the company said.
“As early as next year, any doctor using EHRs from Epic, Allscripts, Cerner, GE Healthcare, Practice Fusion and Aprima, who are meeting with patients whose pharmacy benefits are managed by CVS or ESI, will be able to have these critical conversations with their patients,” a Surescripts spokesperson said.
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