Walgreens, TailorMed Team Up to Deal With Prescription Abandonment: 2022 Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit

Getting a prescription is one thing, filling it is another. And a large percentage — the proportion varies with the price of the medication —of patients don’t fill their prescriptions, principally because of the cost.

Sarah Freedman, a senior manager of specialty pharmacy operations, and Srulik Dvorsky, CEO of TailorMed, discussed the problem of “prescription abandonment” at a session today at the 2022 Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit in Las Vegas.

TailorMed is described as a financial navigation company. Founded in 2018 by Dvorsky the company’s platform uses information about the patient and their prescriptions and then links them to financial assistance programs of various kinds, such as drug coupons and government assistance programs. Dvorsky said the platform now includes about 5,000 programs that might help patients with the financial aspects of their healthcare. He said the company has attracted $35 million in investment. In November, the company acquired Vivor, another financial navigation technology company.

TailorMed signed a contract with Walgreens in June 2021. Dvorsky said the company’s software was being used in 350 of the company’s specialty pharmacies.

Freedman said that identifying financial assistance for patients is an important, but time-consuming process for pharmacists. She said TailorMed ‘s technology should help free up time for pharmacists to deal with patients.

Freedman said her background is as a retail pharmacist. “I would rather talk to them (patients) about their copay assistance and explain it than spend the time on the phone, activating cards.

One byproduct of the technology is patient empowerment, Freedman said.

“It is really important to have a patient be a managing partner in their own healthcare,” she said. “Having that autonomy, that control, means so much when you have a condition that is just taking over your life. Being able to make decisions on your own and feel educated and empowered is really important — and that is what this does.”