SendMyMed
Disrupting opaque drug costs and putting the patient in charge of their prescription medications
Problem: Patients are paying high costs for inexpensive medications as insurers artificially elevate their prices to account for losses on more expensive drugs. This is incredibly unfair to the patient. But there are options. There are a number of sites that offer coupons for common prescriptions, and in some cases it’s cheaper for the patient to pay out of pocket then use their insurance. The problem is the patient has to navigate this system on their own, often finding new pharmacies, transferring prescriptions, or calling their physician to write new prescriptions just to save money.
Solution: SendMyMed is a mobile application that allows the user to manage prescriptions, easily transfer them without the need of a physician or pharmacist and receive coupons and recommendations on where to get the most convenient, cost-effective options. The physician sends the prescription directly to the app. The patient is alerted and uses the app to determine the pharmacy location that works best (price, location, convenience), sends prescription directly to the pharmacy of choice, pays for the prescription and can either pick it up at predetermined time or have the prescription mailed.
Methods: competitive analysis, journey map, user interviews, surveys, personas, and prototyping
Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Xd
Team Role: Researcher, designer, prototyper (individual project)
Goals
The main goals of SendMyMed are to:
Empower the patient through improved control of their medications
Reduce the time it takes to obtain and receive a prescription
Increase price transparency so the patient can have access to the lowest cost available
RESEARCH
In order to understand the scope of the space I conducted an initial survey to get a sense of what people’s awareness around this was. The results of the survey were fascinating. Nearly 50% of people said they were very or somewhat surprised at learning the cost of their prescription medications when they went to pick them up. There are a number of sites that offer coupons for common prescriptions, and in some cases it’s cheaper for the patient to use a coupon and pay out of pocket than to use their insurance. But 46% of people surveyed said they’ve never used coupons and didn’t know they could. The results of the survey show there’s a gap. I had some initial ideas on how to solve this but in order to refine my approach I looked at the competitive analysis, conducted interviews, created wireframes and personas and mapped it all out (see user journeys below).
User Journey
The current user journey is shown on the left and the future state user journey with SendMyMed is shown on the right. There are three main users - the physician, the patient, and the pharmacist.
There are a few key pain points in the current journey, including how the patient first goes about getting a new prescription or refilling a prescription and how the patient obtains that prescription. The future journey with SendMyMed alleviates these pain points, but notes focus areas for future app development consideration.
App design
Below is an example of the SendMyMed App, from a new patient’s perspective. The patient, Kelly, downloads the app and enters her personal information. Meanwhile her physician writes her new prescriptions directly in the app. Kelly receives an alert after the physician has submitted the prescription and she takes over her prescription’s journey. She selects her prescription and is met with a list of local pharmacies and their cost of her medication, after her insurance is applied. She opts out of her home pharmacy because she notices the price is less at another pharmacy nearby. She selects this pharmacy, confirms her information and designates her preferred pickup time before sending the prescription to the new pharmacy. After the pharmacist receives Kelly’s order and fills her prescription, Kelly receives a notification. She notes the pharmacy’s location and will pick up her prescription later. Had she been short on time Kelly could have had the medication delivered to her home. There’s also an option to send the remaining refills to another pharmacy or have them delivered by mail.
