The shop will be open from 7 am to 4 pm, pickup orders will be available from 7 am to 3 pm, and the pharmacy will be open from 11 am to 4 pm during these hours.
How do I know if my Kroger prescription is ready?
I’d want to receive told when my prescription is available for pickup; is that something I can sign up for? When your prescription is ready for collection, you can choose to be alerted by voicemail, text message, or email by adjusting the notification choices that are part of your Patient Profile.
- – Yes, this is possible;
- You will be able to adjust your choices for receiving refill alerts on your Patient Profile if you have previously signed up to receive these reminders;
- Your My Prescriptions account features a notification area that can be accessed through the My Dashboard tab;
There, you will see a list of all of the prescriptions that are available for pick-up.
How long will Kroger pharmacy hold a filled prescription?
Your medications can be held at most Kroger pharmacies for about ten (10) days at a time. There is a possibility that various pharmacies owned by Kroger will keep a prescription on file for a different amount of time before putting it back on the shelves.
Does Kroger automatically refill prescriptions?
Why doesn’t my auto-refill feature work for my prescription? If you have chosen to have your prescriptions automatically refilled and are experiencing troubles, it is possible that your prescription has been filled but not picked up. Following that, it was put back into stock by the Pharmacy.
Does Kroger fill 90-day prescriptions?
When members complete a 30-day or 90-day supply, they are eligible to get six FREE prescriptions (this benefit is available for a variety of doses and amounts).
Does Kroger still have $4 prescriptions?
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Did Kroger stop taking GoodRx?
A couple of weeks ago, GoodRx shocked its investors base with the unsettling news that a major grocery store chain had stopped accepting its discount card for an unspecified number of prescriptions. This came as a surprise to the investors because it was previously unknown how many prescriptions were affected. It is likely that the unknown chain is Kroger, which is the sixth-largest drugstore chain in the United States, as I will explain below. In addition to this, GoodRx has reported that Kroger is responsible for an unanticipated one-quarter of its business regarding prescriptions.
The current scenario with GoodRx brings to light important questions regarding the intricate network of connections and rivalries that underpins the discount card model of today. In the next section, I will discuss the economics of the discount card company in order to provide context for the future of discount cards.
As I will demonstrate, discount cards are really simply a different kind of spread pricing. As a result of the growth in the market for patient-paid prescriptions, disagreements over the proper distribution of spreads will put strain on the relationships between pharmacies and PBMs and push change in the business model for discount cards.
When elephants fight, the grass is the one that gets torn out of the ground. This is a well-known African saying. Will investors continue to back GoodRx, or will they go elsewhere for better opportunities? Continue reading and tell me what you think at the end.
READ ME The following is the pertinent content from GoodRx’s earnings release for the 2022:Q1 quarter:
Letter to Shareholders from GoodRx Regarding Q1 2022
Transcript of the GoodRx Earnings Call (from 5/9/22)
As usual, I urge you to investigate the matter on your own by reading the original source material. You might find it helpful to look back over some of my older posts that discuss GoodRx and the business model that it uses:
How GoodRx Makes Money Off of Our Inefficient Pharmaceutical Pricing System
The Way in Which the Swift Development of GoodRx Causes Disagreement Between PBMs and Payers
Why GoodRx, and not Amazon, Might Be the Real Pharmacy Benefit Manager Disruptor
In Section 4. of the DCI’s 2022 Economic Report on U. Pharmacies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers, I position GoodRx into the larger framework of patient-paid medications. TUSK TO TUSK In a letter to its shareholders, GoodRx provided the following explanation for the unexpectedly positive results of its financial operations: “In addition, we recognized that a grocery chain had taken actions late in the first quarter of 2022 that impacted acceptance of discounted pricing for a subset of drugs from PBMs, who are our customers, and whose pricing we promote on our platform.” During the company’s earnings call, GoodRx revealed that the chain was responsible for “nearly one-quarter of its prescription transaction income,” although making up fewer than 5% of the pharmacies in its retail network.
- This corresponds to around $38 million in sales for GoodRx during the first quarter, or over $150 million yearly;
- The corporation estimated that the impact on their finances would be around $30 million for the second quarter, but they would not make any projections beyond that point;
This was a revelation that took me by surprise. I am one of a large number of people who was unaware that GoodRx had grown so reliant on a single chain of pharmacies. Since the news of the downgrade was announced, the already low stock price of the firm has stayed lower than $9.
- At the beginning of 2021, the price of its stock reached a high of approximately $57;
- Ouch;
- Kroger is the grocery store chain that, according to analysts working for Wall Street, is the only one that will no longer accept the GoodRx discount card for any or all prescriptions;
This uncomfortable truth has been proven by many posts made by customers on Twitter. (For an illustration of this, check here and here.) We estimate that Kroger is responsible for just 3% of the overall income generated by the sale of prescription drugs in the United States.
This shows that GoodRx over-indexed a particular chain far more than necessary. As you can read in the transcript of the results conference, the management team at GoodRx did their best to spin this scenario in a positive light.
They made the right observation that the disagreement is not between Kroger and GoodRx; rather, it is between Kroger and at least one of the PBMs that oversees the retail discounts offered by GoodRx. Because of this, the GoodRx team drew a parallel between their situation with the conflict between Walgreens and Express Scripts in 2012.
- (They did not specifically name these two businesses, but it may be inferred from the surrounding information.) Take a trip down memory lane with the help of the wayback machine at Drug Channels and read these two articles from ten years ago: Walgreens is Losing Its Battle with Express Scripts and Walgreen Cuts a Deal with Express Scripts;
The remark provided by GoodRx was puzzling and difficult for me to understand. Here is my analysis of what is actually taking place. DISCOUNT CARDS = SPREAD PRICING Third-party payers are able to reimburse a PBM for plan administration and other services through the use of spread pricing.
Spread pricing is a method of compensating a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) by allowing the PBM to keep the differences, also known as spreads, between (a) the amount a PBM charges the payer and (b) the amount the PBM pays the pharmacy that is dispensing the prescription to a patient.
This method is used by payers to provide PBMs with financial incentives. According to our estimates, the importance of spread pricing to the total profitability of big PBMs has significantly decreased. (For more information, please refer to Section 11.2.3.
of our 2022 pharmacy/PBM study.) However, a significant number of individuals are unaware that spread pricing is the principal means by which PBMs benefit from discount cards. As a consequence of this, the conflict between Kroger and PBM is basically a struggle about how this spread gets shared.
The following graphic provides an illustration of the flow of products and money that occurs when a patient pays the entire cost of their prescription for a generic medicine using a discount card rather than making use of any third-party insurance. These movements have been taken out of the figure since generic medicine makers do not offer rebates to PBMs or payers.
- [Click here to make it bigger] Compared to the traditional scenario that is depicted in our well-known follow-the-dollar graphic, this one has a few key distinctions, including the following:
When a discount card is used, the patient is the one responsible for making payment;
There is no money coming from a third party for the prescription. The pharmacy will get the full amount owed for the prescription once the patient has paid for it out of their own money. (See below for further information on this topic.) The contractual and financial flows that occur between PBMs and third-party payers have been omitted from the figure that can be found above.
When a patient utilizes a discount card program, the Drugstore Benefit Manager (PBM) will take a per-prescription charge from the pharmacy.
- The patient’s payment for the prescription is subtracted by the cost associated with the discount card to arrive at the pharmacy’s net reimbursement;
- As a result, this charge constitutes an increase above the total amount of net reimbursement that the pharmacy receives;
Patients, just like many other types of payers, are typically unaware that a PBM is the one responsible for collecting this cost.
The PBM does not keep track of the full spread of the discount card. A part of this cost is split between the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) and the discount card vendor that referred the patient to the pharmacy.
- The PBM will pay the discount card vendor either a percentage of the fee it charges or a predetermined sum for each prescription;
- According to GoodRx’s records, the company gets around 15% of the entire retail cost of the patient’s prescriptions, regardless of the form;
Please refer to my opinion in this post from the month of August last year.
Assuming that PBMs do not incur losses on prescriptions paid for with discount cards, overall discount card spreads are (on average) larger than 15% of the total retail cost to the customer. The following are some preliminary estimations of the economics of prescriptions sold by GoodRx, PBM, and Kroger:
The total money generated by customers utilizing GoodRx at Kroger pharmacies amounts to $1 billion ($150 million multiplied by 15 percent).
The income generated from transactions at Kroger by GoodRx is $150 million
PBM transaction revenue from GoodRx at Kroger is equal to $50 million (this is assuming that discount card spread accounts for 25% of overall income).
Kroger’s prescription business brought in a net revenue of $800 million, which is equivalent to $1 billion less the discount card spread of $200 million.
Wow. If you can get away with it, you can make a lot of money. BEATEN TO DEATH BY FOOT? The data shown above is becoming increasingly important for comprehending the factors that will shape the future of discount cards. Here are three trends that you should keep an eye on: 1) The number of prescriptions that are paid for by the patient is rising.
- Let’s say that PBMs maintain the remaining 25% of the discount card spread and GoodRx keeps the remaining 75% of the spread;
- Patients are increasingly responsible for paying for their own prescription prices through the use of deductibles and coinsurance;
As a direct consequence of this, an increasing proportion of prescriptions get no payment from a third party since individuals pay the whole cost themselves. In addition to this, the price structure for generic prescription drugs is so flawed that more than 70 percent of customers who utilized GoodRx already had private or government-sponsored health insurance.
- According to estimates provided by GoodRx, more than half of the prescriptions that were filled using the company’s discount card were completed at a lower cost than the typical copay required by commercial insurance for the 100 most often purchased pharmaceuticals;
In 2021, we believe that patient-paid medications accounted for around 9 percent of all prescriptions that were not altered. More over half of these patient-paid medication transactions involved the use of discount cards. [Click here to make it bigger] Because a PBM decides whether or not a claim is valid, patient-paid medications that involve the use of a discount card are not counted as cash-pay transactions.
Therefore, they cause a consumerization of retail prescriptions; nevertheless, this does not always result in a consumerization of the pharmacy and PBM companies. 2) Pharmacies will fight back against the narrowing profit margins offered by discount cards.
When a patient uses a discount card, the pharmacy is required to pay a charge for the privilege of dispensing medication to the patient, even if the patient may have been willing to pay the same amount for the prescription straight to the drugstore anyway.
- However, due to the peculiar nature of our medicine distribution system, it is impossible for pharmacies to provide customers with cheap cash costs that are comparable to those offered by discount cards;
In part because discount card suppliers are seeking ever-higher payment rates, PBMs have been attempting to widen these disparities. As a direct result of this, the profit margins that pharmacies make on discount card prescriptions are shrinking. This adds another another profit pressure to the already extensive list of disadvantages that retail pharmacy must contend with.
It will be difficult for pharmacies to recoup these margins after these changes. There is an excessive number of retail pharmacy stores across the majority of the United States. 3) PBMs will take action in response to the threat posed by discount cards.
I have long held the belief that discount cards have the potential to be the ultimate game-changer that affects the economics of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the decisions made by plan sponsors, and the whole generic market. The processing of claims for generic medications makes for about 90 percent of a PBM’s total business.
People are being incentivized to go around their own insurance plans in order to access the network prices of another PBM—or even their own plan’s PBM disguised as a discount card. This is happening because discount cards are becoming more prevalent.
PBMs have reaped the benefits of the fast expansion of discount cards. I believe that they are now aware of the risks that this increase poses to the value of the benefit management services that they provide. Maintain vigilance with regard to the following tactics:
PBMs are making an effort to raise the spreads on discount cards and/or keep a larger proportion of these spreads for themselves.
To this point, discount card companies have been able to maintain their profit margins by cooperating with more nimble and hungry PBMs that are interested in expanding their business. As an illustration, GoodRx’s portion of the income generated by its three major PBMs has been steadily decreasing, going from 61% in 2018 to 34% in 2021.
This would imply that the corporation is expanding its presence in the market in order to keep up with the competition.
PBMs are making efforts to incorporate a “discount card” pricing structure into commercial benefit plans. Express Scripts and Prime Therapeutics have both indicated that they would be implementing these schemes.
PBMs have the ability to hide behind discount cards in order to undermine the network rates that are offered to their own customers, as I argued in a previous article. The conditions under which a member’s out-of-pocket expense under a PBM-managed benefit plan might be higher than their cost utilizing a discount card program handled by the same PBM are still difficult for me to comprehend.
I recently hosted a video webinar titled “PBM Industry Update: Trends, Controversies, and Outlook,” in which I discussed how patient-paid medications have the potential to shake up the PBM industry.
Let’s see if GoodRx has the intelligence to avoid being trampled grass in this competition.
Can you pick up someone else’s prescription Kroger?
Answer: – Yes. A pharmacist can use their professional judgment, together with their expertise and knowledge of common practice, to make reasonable conclusions about what is in the patient’s best interest when it comes to permitting another individual to pick up a prescription instead of the patient themselves.
- 510 Please refer to 45 CFR 164;
- (b);
- For instance, the fact that a relative or friend shows up at a pharmacy and asks to pick up a particular prescription for an individual effectively verifies that the relative or friend is involved in the care of the individual, and the HIPAA Privacy Rule permits the pharmacist to give the filled prescription to the relative or friend;
In this scenario, the individual’s involvement in the individual’s care has been effectively verified. There is no requirement for the individual to inform the pharmacist with the names of these individuals in advance. The content that was produced by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) Review of content most recent occurred on July 26, 2013.
How long do I have to collect my prescription?
Unless the drug being prescribed contains a prohibited substance, a regular prescription is only good for a period of six months beginning on the day that the prescription was written. The following dates can be written on the prescription:
The date that the healthcare provider who issued it signed it, or the date that the healthcare provider has stated the prescription should not be distributed before.
If a prescription has both of these dates, the six-month period will begin with the date that is further in the future.
Can you return a prescription to Kroger?
What’s Up Kroger Pharmacy?
Is it possible to bring back a prescription to Kroger? – When your order is being processed is the only time you will be able to cancel your prescription order. You are unable to make changes to or cancel the order at any point during or after delivery.
Can I fill my prescription online?
There are typically two approaches that may be taken when filling a prescription online: You can complete your prescription by using an online pharmacy or a mail-order pharmacy, in which case the pharmacy will send you the prescriptions that you have been prescribed.
Is Kroger Rx the same as GoodRx?
Together with Kroger, GoodRx is offering customers substantial savings on their prescription medication. Patients will be able to save as much as one hundred percent on the cost of their prescription medications thanks to GoodRx’s collaboration with The Kroger Company on the introduction of the The Kroger Rx Savings Club.
Does Kroger give free antibiotics?
Giving out free antibiotics is Kroger’s way of expressing gratitude to consumers for their business and assisting them in maintaining the best possible health while minimizing the expenditures associated with it, according to Bruce Macaulay, president of the Columbus Division of The Kroger Company.
Does Kroger Pharmacy use GoodRx?
GoodRx, which holds the title of “America’s #1 source for savings on prescription pharmaceuticals,” is pleased to announce that it will be partnering with Kroger to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for millions of patients in the United States.
Can you pick up someone else’s prescription Kroger?
Answer: – Yes. A pharmacist can use their professional judgment, together with their expertise and knowledge of common practice, to make reasonable conclusions about what is in the patient’s best interest when it comes to permitting another individual to pick up a prescription instead of the patient themselves.
510 Please refer to 45 CFR 164. (b). For instance, the fact that a relative or friend shows up at a pharmacy and asks to pick up a particular prescription for an individual effectively verifies that the relative or friend is involved in the care of the individual, and the HIPAA Privacy Rule permits the pharmacist to give the filled prescription to the relative or friend.
In this scenario, the individual’s involvement in the individual’s care has been effectively verified. There is no requirement for the individual to inform the pharmacist with the names of these individuals in advance. The content that was produced by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) Review of content most recent occurred on July 26, 2013.
What is partial refill remaining?
August 18, 2016 AJPB® Translating Evidence-Based Research Into Value-Based Decisions®, Volume 8 Issue 4, July/August 2016, AJPB® Although there is growing interest in specialty-focused partial-fill plan designs, there are contradictory viewpoints regarding whether or not these plans minimize waste or affect the quality of service.
- What Does It Mean to Partial Fill? The pharmaceutical sector has been using the phrase “partial fill” for quite some time;
- In the past, pharmacists would turn to partial fills in the event that there was a shortage of a particular supply;
In this scenario, a patient would receive a half fill of their prescription while they waited for the remaining portion of their prescription to become available. This partial-fill scenario occurred with classic small-molecule drugs the vast majority of the time.
In more recent times, the term “partial fill” has come to indicate something quite different. In contrast to conventional oral small-molecule drugs, which are typically administered on a 90-day cycle, speciality pharmaceuticals have not traditionally followed this distribution pattern.
Only a small fraction of payers will cover a specialty drug supply for the full 90 days. Payors have been using a fill cycle of thirty days more frequently as of late. However, throughout the course of the past few years, the duration of the medication has continued to shorten, with some cases reaching only 14–16 days.
We live in a world where things are only partially filled. Why Should We Make Use of a Partial Fill? Even though it is now conventional practice in the context of traditional pharmacy benefit management, there are still certain payers that are hesitant to make 90-day fills of drugs available to patients.
Those individuals who have not made 90-day fills accessible through the design of their plan have expressed their worry with the “stockpiling” and the waste of pharmaceuticals. The focus on cost reduction has shifted due to the rapid replacement of small-molecule drugs by speciality pharmaceuticals in the top 10 lists maintained by payors.
Currently, I am hearing numerous concerns around prescription waste that are quite similar to those that we heard in the past. The price tag of the pharmaceutical is where you’ll see the biggest difference, since it’s not uncommon for specialist medications to cost more than $100,000.
Payers with whom I deal are aware of the opportunities afforded to patients who are making use of speciality drugs. A good number of these medicines provide solutions to medical issues that previously went unaddressed. Payors are likewise aware of the need of covering these treatments; nevertheless, they do not wish to contribute to the waste of pharmaceuticals.
They are tackling this challenge in a number of different ways, one of which is by utilizing a specialty-focused partial-fill plan design. The design for the Partial Fill Plan This plan design has been gaining favor over the past few of years, despite the fact that partial fills for speciality pharmaceuticals have just been around for the past few years.
According to the findings of a recent research that was supported by EMD Serono, 43 percent of plans are now using designs that feature partial fills. Within the design of the plan, I have observed two significant areas of variation:
Various classes of pharmaceuticals Which prescriptions for medications are affected?
The particulars surrounding a partial fill change depending on the benefit design that is tied to it, as well as whether the requirement is concentrated just on the initial fill or applies to subsequent fills as well.
The vast majority of businesses that participate in partial-fill programs concentrate their efforts on orally administered cancer drugs. Other organizations have adopted a broader view, and in addition to oncology, they also include anti-inflammatory pharmaceuticals, treatments for multiple sclerosis, and medicines to treat hepatitis C.
There is not only some variance in the pharmaceutical classes that are prioritized, but there is also some difference in the time period during which the partial-fill plan design is in force. A little less than half of the payors who use such a strategy put their attention on the first fill.
These organizations are of the opinion that the design of this strategy has the most significant influence when it is first implemented. However, there are some organizations who feel a partial fill goes beyond efficacy and safety, and they use it for future fills.
Only a very small group uses a partial fill for each fill, but the majority of organizations use it for subsequent fills. As I said before, the designs of partial-refill plans might differ. The end aim that the payer has in mind is one of the factors that contribute to this difference.
- After talking with my customers, I’ve discovered that the causes range from a concentration on money and its impact to a concentration on medicine and a lot of other areas in between;
- The opportunities that come with a partial fill are as follows: Some people believe that a partial fill is nothing more than a scheme designed to cut down on waste, while others have brought up the possibility of an effect on the quality of care provided;
A third group views a partial fill as a medication-support and education tool as an alternative to a full fill. The truth is that it might be any of the three depending on the services that are provided in the area surrounding the design of the partial-fill plan.
- The most successful programs for partial-fill contain components such as the following:
Prior to finishing the filling of the secondary component of the prescription, a clinical evaluation of its efficacy and any potential adverse effects should be performed;
Checking to see if a patient really does require the drug. This may involve difficulties such as admittance to an inpatient institution during the interval or a change in circumstances, such as diagnoses, clinical objectives, or death. Another possibility is that the patient has passed away.
- addressing any problems with drug compliance that may be caused by the medicine;
- reviewing more clinical information pertaining to the patient’s health or the medicine being administered to them;
- A thorough inventory of all of the patient’s medications, with the goal of identifying any potential difficulties or problems caused by drug-drug interactions;
Having a conversation with the physician who prescribed the medication, if that doctor is not also the assessing clinician. Providing assistance in the identification of alternative therapies in the event that the original medicine causes clinical difficulties (such as unwanted effects or ineffectiveness).
What Are Some of the Drawbacks Associated with Using a Partial Fill? Two areas of potential risk are related with partial fill, and both of them have been identified.
The out-of-pocket expenses borne by the patient come in first. Patients were obliged to pay a full month’s co-pay or coinsurance during the early stages of the evolution of partial fill, despite the fact that they were only getting the partial-fill portion of the prescription.
This resulted in a significant amount of discontent and commotion among the patients. This method of payment is utilized infrequently these days, thus it is no longer a concern. When there is little or no clinical interaction between the partial fill and the completion of the fill, which is the second area of worry that has been discovered, this is the second area of issue that has been identified.
- This partial-fill technique can cut down on wasteful fill completion, which in turn can cut down on expenses; nevertheless, this loses a chance to possibly enhance clinical outcomes and help patients with medical problems that frequently require extensive clinical support;
The Last Word When it comes to the design of insurance plans for speciality pharmaceuticals, I am a supporter of the partial-fill plan. I feel that this program assists plan members in obtaining the greatest possible outcome connected with their medicine, while also guaranteeing that cost savings are made when it is not required to fill a whole prescription for a drug.
Having said that, I always recommend to my customers that they consult with their specialist pharmacy in order to make certain that there are reliable clinical programs incorporated into the creation of this plan.
What sort of results have you gotten from using partial fills? Are they impediments to care or do they contribute to its improvement? I will hold my breath till I hear from you.