Rising costs are a burden for too many people living with diabetes today. Patients with a high-deductible health plan shoulder all of their medication costs while in the deductible phase of their insurance, which means they may be forced to make difficult decisions about whether they can afford their medications and fill their prescription.
Recent data reveal there is uncertainty on how to manage and predict the out-of-pocket costs associated with diabetes management. For example, nearly one-third of patients (32 percent) do not feel they have the resources needed to manage their own out-of-pocket costs. To address this challenge, CVS Health is working to eliminate member cost as a barrier to medication adherence.
Improving medication affordability and adherence
Improving diabetes outcomes while reducing costs is a priority for CVS Health. We recently launched RxZERO to enable employers and health plan sponsors to leverage formulary and plan design approaches to offer all categories of diabetes medications at zero dollar out of pocket for their members without raising costs for the plan sponsor or increasing premiums or deductibles for all plan members. The new plan design enables plan sponsors to eliminate member out of-pocket costs for the entire diabetes therapeutic area — including oral medications for Type 2 diabetes — and fully adhere to American Diabetes Association standards.