
Ask HN: System linking discount drug cards to pharmacy or doctor? - lscore720
Not everyone knows that drug manufacturers offer  discount cards on their websites.  Occasionally the doctor&#x27;s office will give you the heads up, which is nice.  But there&#x27;s a huge information gap here and it can cost people meaningful amounts of money.<p>I wish there existed (if there doesn&#x27;t already) a notification system that links these discounts with the doctor&#x27;s office (or pharmacy, though that might conflict with their interests).  When they pull up the medicine to prescribe, the discount card information automatically pops up and a print out is shared with the patient.  Maybe a more advanced system would determine the patient&#x27;s eligibility based on his&#x2F;her profile and send the discount request&#x2F;card directly to the pharmacy.<p>I&#x27;m just a sales&#x2F;marketing&#x2F;finance guy with the technical acumen on par with advanced primates, so I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the feasibility of this technology.  I appreciate it.
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smt88
Many doctors' prescriptions default to the generic option. I think this is
actually the law in many states: the patient gets the generic drug unless the
doctor (or patient) specifically ask for the brand name.

The notification system you're describing would need access to doctors'
records and/or pharmacy records, as well as patient contact info. That's
absolutely red-hot information from a security standpoint. It's not cheap or
easy to build a system to hold that information, let alone act on it by
contacting patients.

It's a substantial technology problem, but it's doable. It's currently an
insurmountable sales/education/legal problem.

(I know a lot about this area because some good friends of mine tried and
failed to build a company based on the idea of getting brand-name Rx discounts
into patients' hands.)

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lscore720
This is really helpful, thanks for explaining!

