Amazon Pharmacy announced two major updates on Tuesday — an expansion of PillPack to Medicare Part D and a new caregiver feature — that experts say will have a major effect on medication adherence.
PillPack helps people who take multiple prescriptions by sending them monthly shipments of personalized, pre-organized medication packets. The packets are labeled with date and time to help people adhere to their medications. Now, more than 50 million Medicare Part D beneficiaries who have multiple daily medications are able to access PillPack through their insurance. The announcement comes as about two-thirds of Medicare beneficiaries battle two or more chronic conditions.
With the new caregiver feature, customers can invite loved ones to manage medications on the customer’s behalf through their own Amazon Pharmacy account. To enable this feature, the customer logs into their account, sends an invitation to the caregiver, who will receive a link over SMS. The caregiver fills out some information about the customer and then can start managing the medications. Currently, one in five adults in the U.S. are taking care of a family member.
These updates solve a key hurdle in healthcare, according to John Love, vice president of Amazon Pharmacy.
“Our primary goal is to simplify medication management and make it easier for customers to follow their prescribed treatment plans, ultimately helping them get and stay healthy. … We recognize that medication management becomes increasingly complex as people age or manage chronic conditions. By expanding these services, we’re addressing real healthcare challenges that millions of Americans face every day, and we’re committed to continuing to innovate in ways that improve the customer experience,” Love said in an email.
These two updates from Amazon Pharmacy will have a meaningful impact, according to Kate Festle, a partner in consulting company West Monroe’s healthcare M&A group.
“These features will continue to move American sentiment in the direction of consumer-directed healthcare, which hinges on the idea that patients can manage their conditions in a self-service, digital-first fashion that circumvents many traditional [primary care provider] and prescriber points of friction,” Festle said.
She added that both the enhancements align with the growing healthcare consumer trend of aging at home.
“With the medication management update, Amazon is capitalizing on the rise of family caregivers, an alternative model to home health aides that is increasingly gaining traction, especially among the pre-Medicare population,” Festle stated. “With the Pillpack integration, Amazon is anchoring on the growing patient sentiment of elongating chronic condition management from home, offering tools to simplify medication management and remove the doctor-in-the-loop dependencies.”
Another healthcare expert noted that while these announcements from Amazon focus on making it easier for patients to adhere to medications, it’s “layered on top of its existing differentiation on cost for consumers.” Amazon Pharmacy provides transparent pricing, works with most insurance and offers coupons. It also has a program called RxPass, which gives Prime members unlimited access to eligible medications for $5 a month.
“High costs and lack of price transparency for medications are significant barriers for US consumers, and lead to exacerbation of existing chronic conditions, ultimately driving up avoidable medical spend,” said Arielle Trzcinski, principal analyst at consulting firm Forrester.
She noted that Forrester data shows that 71% of healthcare practitioners report that the high cost of medications prevents their patients from accessing needed prescriptions.
Several other companies are also addressing medication adherence. For example, GoodRx has a solution called Medicine Cabinet, which helps consumers know what medications they need to take or if they need to order a refill.
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