Castlight Health Introduces Castlight Pharmacy to Deliver Transparency Into Prescription Drug Costs
Mar 20, 2013
Merges Detailed Medical and Prescription Information for the First Time,
Enabling Employers and Employees to Dramatically Reduce Health Care Costs
SAN FRANCISCO – March 20, 2013 – Castlight Health today announced Castlight Pharmacy. The new offering helps employees and companies save money on prescription drug purchases by enabling employees to shop for the best price on their medications from a wide variety of sellers. Castlight Pharmacy is a powerful new addition to the Castlight health care management suite.
Buying prescription medication is one of the most common purchases that consumers make on a periodic basis. According to the CDC, 48 percent of Americans have an active pharmacy prescription and individuals between the ages of 19 and 64 fill a prescription 12 times a year on average (Kaiser). While purchasing prescriptions is common, as with other medical procedures and services, medication prices can vary significantly and individuals often have limited information about cost until they are at the point of purchase. In one common example, the retail price of the prescription drug Lipitor can vary by $50 or more per month from various providers within a specific geographic area. Moreover, employers cover much of the cost of these prescriptions for their employees.
With the addition of Castlight Pharmacy, Castlight is delivering the industry’s first comprehensive Health Care Transparency solution providing both medical and prescription information in a single, integrated platform. Castlight has partnered with the leading Pharmacy Benefit Managers to ensure employers maintain a consistent experience for their employees. With Castlight’s health care management suite, employers can enable their employees to take better control of their overall medical and pharmaceutical spending, while promoting wellness and improving outcomes.
“Simple changes – like filling a prescription at a different pharmacy, switching to mail order delivery or changing to a generic drug – can lead to significant cost savings, yet individuals traditionally have little visibility into the options available,” said Ethan Prater, vice president of products, Castlight Health. “By giving users transparency into pharmaceutical costs across a number of channels, Castlight Pharmacy offers a powerful and simple way for employees to cut their health care bills. In tandem, as individuals tend to fill prescriptions more often than visiting a doctor, it gives employers another high-touch way to engage employees in complementary benefits and wellness programs.”
According to Consumer Reports, individuals regularly taking prescriptions pay an average of $708 out-of-pocket annually. For employers like ConAgra Foods, with 25,000 employees in North America, Health Care Transparency into prescriptions can play a key role in reducing costs for the company and its employees.
“Prescription medications represent a significant portion of the overall medical costs that our company pays on behalf of our employees’ health and well-being,” said Bart Karlson, Senior Director of Benefits Strategy and Analysis, ConAgra Foods. “With the addition of Castlight Pharmacy, our employees will have easy access to clear information about the prices of their medications from multiple sellers so they can make more informed choices. Coupling this with the critical information Castlight already provides on medical service providers and procedures, we will be able to further engage and empower our employees to take better control of their overall health care costs and experiences.”
Castlight Pharmacy offers the following features to users:
- In-depth cost information on a wide range of available prescription medications
- The ability for employees to view their out-of-pocket costs for prescription medications, tailored to their individual pharmacy benefits packages
- A detailed pharmacy directory
- Custom links to an employer’s mail-order service and to low-cost retailers for immediate fulfillment
- Comparison tools to aid in the selection of certain medicines, such as brand name versus generic or other therapeutic alternatives
- Proactive, personalized alerts highlighting lower-cost options, based on past prescriptions
- Comprehensive, real-time summary of users’ available benefits options and health care expenditures
- Educational resources on gaps in care and condition management, including prescription adherence, as well as answers to frequently asked questions about medications
- Access to Castlight Pharmacy through the Castlight website, Castlight Mobile or a phone call to Castlight’s customer support team
About Castlight Health
Castlight Health enables employers, their employees, and health plans to take control of health care costs and improve care. Named #1 on The Wall Street Journal’s list of “The Top 50 Venture-Backed Companies” for 2011 and one of Dow Jones’ 50 Most Investment-Worthy Technology Start-Ups, Castlight Health helps the country’s self-insured employers and health plans empower consumers to shop for health care. Castlight Health is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by prominent investors including Allen & Company, Cleveland Clinic, Maverick Capital, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Oak Investment Partners, Redmile Group, T. Rowe Price, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock, Wellcome Trust and two unnamed mutual funds. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.castlighthealth.com or call (415) 829-1400.
Press Contact:
Drew Smith
Blanc & Otus for Castlight Health
415-856-5127
Press Information