|
Uber Technologies, Inc. announced late last month that it would embed same-day
prescription delivery on its Uber Health app, expanding the offerings
available to its health care provider and payer customers. Although the
feature could help patients adhere to their medications and save costs for
employers, PBMs and health plans, Uber faces numerous competitors in a
crowded field and could have challenges getting the delivery feature covered,
according to health care experts who spoke with AIS Health.
Uber expands partnership
with ScriptDrop
- Uber Health in
2021 formed a
partnership with ScriptDrop to make Uber the default delivery app for a
network of grocery stores and independent pharmacies in 37 states. Those
stores and pharmacies already had deals with ScriptDrop, a health care
information technology company founded in 2016, so they gained access to
Uber’s network of drivers.
- The latest
transaction means that ScriptDrop’s technology will be integrated into
the Uber Health app and available for any of Uber Health’s more than
3,000 existing health care customers or anyone else who signs up for the
service.
- ScriptDrop CEO
Amanda Epptells AIS Health that with the integration into the Uber
Health app, “we’re able to connect and reach new patients that really do
need transportation, especially after surgery or something where you’re
going home and your caregiver has to go out to get your medications. Now
it can all just be seamless and delivered to the door.”
Amazon, startups offer
prescription delivery, too
- Prescription
delivery “is a competitive space, for sure,” Peter Manoogian, a
principal at consulting firm ZS Associates, tells AIS
Health.
- Manoogian adds
that besides existing delivery services such as Amazon’s
RxPass and startups like Capsule and Alto Pharmacy, Uber will
also face competition from mail order pharmacies, which saw a sharp
increase in demand during the coronavirus pandemic. In recent months,
though, fewer people have used mail order pharmacies, which Manoogian
believes could become the norm.
- “Many of the
mail order pharmacies that we’re familiar with, they’ve had some
headwinds,” Manoogian says. And that will likely be the same for
prescription delivery, as well, according to Manoogian.
- “I still think
the uptake is in the works,” he says. “It’s not massive by any stretch.
If you’re an Uber, maybe you’re looking to diversify your product a
little bit more as people continue to get back to the office.”
How will payers react?
- Colin Russi, a
principal at consulting firm ZS Associates, tells AIS Health it remains
to be seen how health plans or PBMs will react to Uber Health offering
same-day prescription delivery. He estimates that about 30% of
prescriptions are never picked up at pharmacies, which “costs plans
money to a certain extent because that is a care gap that is being
created.”
- The issue is
particularly important for insurers that offer Medicare Advantage
Prescription Drug plans and standalone Prescription Drug Plans because
their Star Ratings are determined in part on a
measure called “Getting Needed Prescription Drugs” on the Consumer
Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey.
- “That directly
impacts their reimbursement, so they’re interested in it from that
perspective,” Russi says. “On the flip side, these plans have their own
pharmacy divisions and a lot of those have a mail order component. [Uber
Health] will compete with that mail order piece because it is taking
away from the value proposition that would have been there from a mail
order pharmacy.”
|
No comments:
Post a Comment