In Continued Push for Transparency in Drug Prices, AMA Launches Grassroots Campaign to Hear Patients Stories
Add your voice to the growing dissatisfaction over high drug prices. The American Medical Association is asking people hit with rising prescription costs to tell their stories on their new interactive site www.TruthInRx.org.
TruthInRx.org is an interactive site that gives consumers an opportunity to tell their stories of how rising prices are affecting their health and their pocketbooks. The site will be home to a gallery of curated videos and testimonials. It also will give supporters ways to take action, such as sending a message to Congress and sharing content within their social networks.
Prescription drug pricing has been a consistent concern for patients and their physicians — with a 20 percent increase in out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs from 2013 to 2015. This has caught the bipartisan attention of Congress, highlighted by the recent 400-percent price increase for life-saving EpiPens – an increase that came without any justification.
“Physicians strive to provide the best possible care to their patients, but increases in drug prices – without explanation – can affect their ability to offer patients the best possible drug treatments. A little sunlight will help patients navigate the world of capricious pricing that is putting some medications out of reach,” said AMA President Andrew W. Gurman, MD.
This election year, prescription drug pricing has been one of the few issues to unite both parties. Consumers are seeing the prices of their medications – often with no change to the ingredients – increase dramatically. Since there is little information on pricing negotiations or the role of industry players — including pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers and health insurers — the AMA is asking the public to join our initiative to uncover the truth about prescription drug prices.
Consumers can visit TruthInRx.org to add their voices and tell their stories.
In the news:
AMA ups pressure on drug pricing. The nation’s largest doctors group is opening a new front in its push against high drug prices by soliciting testimonials from people facing rising prescription drug costs. The AMA will post those stories on a new site, TruthInRx.org, in what it says is meant to bring transparency to the drug price issue and send a message to Congress, according to a release obtained by POLITICO.
The announcement also hits pharmaceutical companies and health insurers for offering “little information on pricing negotiations or the role of industry players,” and calls out Mylan for hiking EpiPen prices “without any justification.”
… “A little sunlight will help patients navigate the world of capricious pricing that is putting some medications out of reach,” AMA President Andrew Gurman says in a statement. The full release for Pros: More.
