Systems and Methods for Shifting Prescription Market Share by Presenting Pricing Differentials for Therapeutic Alternatives

a technology of pricing differentials and market share, applied in the field of prescriptions, can solve the problems of increasing the cost of prescription drugs and other medicines, recurring and increasing costs for many consumers, and consumers may not know the availability of relative prices, and achieve the effect of reducing the cost of co-pays

Inactive Publication Date: 2007-07-12
NDCHEALTH CORP
View PDF103 Cites 45 Cited by
  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017] In accordance with another example embodiment of the invention, the Therapeutic Alternative Program's functionality may also be implemented in the funded transaction market by providing similar messaging to the pharmacy informing them of therapeutically-equivalent medications on

Problems solved by technology

The cost for prescription drugs and other medicines can be a recurring and increasing expense for many consumers.
In many instances, consumers may be unaware of the availability of and relative prices between the variety of drug and medicine product choices, including alternative drugs such as generic drugs.
In many instances, a consumer may be prescribed a brand name drug by his or her physician, which may be relatively more expensive than other competing, alternative drugs, such as a generic drug with therapeutically equivalent effects.
Obtaining alternative drug product information from a physician and/or pharmacist or by conducting independent research can be difficult and time consuming.
A common drawback to asking

Method used

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
View more

Image

Smart Image Click on the blue labels to locate them in the text.
Viewing Examples
Smart Image
  • Systems and Methods for Shifting Prescription Market Share by Presenting Pricing Differentials for Therapeutic Alternatives
  • Systems and Methods for Shifting Prescription Market Share by Presenting Pricing Differentials for Therapeutic Alternatives
  • Systems and Methods for Shifting Prescription Market Share by Presenting Pricing Differentials for Therapeutic Alternatives

Examples

Experimental program
Comparison scheme
Effect test

example 1

100% co-pay plan hosted by switch provider

[0037] In a first embodiment of the invention, a switch provider may host a Therapeutic Alternative Program (TAP) or therapeutic alternative program module in addition to a 100% co-pay plan. In this first embodiment of the invention, a transaction received at the switch provider from the pharmacy may be exposed to a system of editing functionality that will compare the submitted drug entity and dosage to a known set of therapeutically-equivalent preferred items. Based upon the submitted drug entity and dosage submitted, the switch provider may populate a list of equivalent drug entities, dosages, and the respective pricing, available manufacturer or provider rebates, coupons, vouchers, patient assistance, or similar price reduction methodologies associated with each. If a therapeutically-equivalent entity exists on this list, that item(s) will be utilized to populate the messaging notifying the pharmacy of the preferred entity. The pricing ...

example 2

100% co-pay plan hosted by an entity other than the switch provider

[0041] In a second embodiment of the invention, the switch provider may host a Therapeutic Alternative Program (TAP), but the 100% co-pay plan may be hosted by an entity other than the switch provider. Accordingly, in this second embodiment, the claim will come to the switch provider while on its way to a 100% co-pay claims processor, such a Pharmacy Benefits Manage (PBM). The Therapeutic Alternative Program will function in substantially the same way as described above, except the market share shift may be driven by the preferred drug list that is in place at the switch provider instead of any preferred drug list that may or may not be in place at the 100% co-pay claims processor.

[0042] This second embodiment will now be described with reference to FIG. 2. In FIG. 2, as shown in 201, a transaction leaves the pharmacy and enters the switch provider's TAP before it reaches the hosted 100% co-pay plan at the PBM wher...

example 3

Funded Plans

[0045] A third embodiment of the invention may involve the use of a switch provider's Therapeutic Alternative Program (TAP) in the funded transaction marketplace. In this third embodiment, the preferred drug list would be provided by the funded program (Prescription Benefits Manager or PBM) along with the means of identifying the patient and the co-pay differentials associated with the consumer choosing a preferred item. The claim would come to the switch provider where it would be subjected to editing to determine the presence of one or more alternative, preferred item(s) and the co-pay differential associated with using one of the preferred item(s). That information would be returned to the pharmacy in the same fashion as previously described.

[0046] This third embodiment will now be described with reference to FIG. 3. In FIG. 3, as shown in 301, a transaction leaves the pharmacy and enters the switch provider's TAP before it reaches the PBM for adjudication. In the T...

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
Login to view more

PUM

No PUM Login to view more

Abstract

While a pharmacist may know of other medications approved by the FDA for the same medical condition, the pharmacist typically does not know what the therapeutically equivalent dose of those products is when compared to the originally prescribed item In addition to this lack of equivalent dosage information, the pharmacist also is unable to determine if any of those other FDA approved items will save the consumer any money. Accordingly, embodiments of the invention can provide pharmacists and/or consumers with equivalent dosage information as well as pricing information for the equivalent dosage. Accordingly, based at least in part on this information, consumers may have an incentive to and may decide to purchase to another prescription drug, thereby shifting market share to a preferred prescription drug or pharmaceutical manufacturer or provider.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application claims priority to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60 / 748,432, entitled “Systems and Methods for Shifting Prescription Market Share By Presenting Pricing Differentials for Therapeutic Alternatives,” filed on Dec. 8, 2005.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] Aspects of the invention relate generally to prescriptions, and more particularly, to systems and methods for driving market share for medications or pharmaceutical manufacturers or providers by presenting pricing differentials for therapeutic alternatives. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] The cost for prescription drugs and other medicines can be a recurring and increasing expense for many consumers. Pharmaceutical companies and generic drug manufacturers or providers can offer consumers competing drug and medicine products at different, sometimes substantially different, prices. In many instances, consumers may be unaware of the availability of and relative prices between the variety...

Claims

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
Login to view more

Application Information

Patent Timeline
no application Login to view more
IPC IPC(8): G06Q10/00G07G1/00G06F17/00
CPCG06Q10/10G06Q50/22G06Q30/0283G06Q30/0206G16H20/10
Inventor WILEY, JOSEPH LEE IIBURKETT, KENNETH E.
Owner NDCHEALTH CORP
Who we serve
  • R&D Engineer
  • R&D Manager
  • IP Professional
Why Eureka
  • Industry Leading Data Capabilities
  • Powerful AI technology
  • Patent DNA Extraction
Social media
Try Eureka
PatSnap group products

Browse by: Latest US Patents, China's latest patents, Technical Efficacy Thesaurus, Application Domain, Technology Topic.

© 2024 PatSnap. All rights reserved.Legal|Privacy policy|Modern Slavery Act Transparency Statement|Sitemap