So where exactly this is happening? Oregon to be exact.

Thinkprogress.org recently posted an article explaining how Obamacare is “more on track” than “train wreck”. With the recent public reveal of a side-by-side regional comparison of all proposed 2014 premiums for Oregon marketplace, it portrayed insurers’ planned monthly premiums were far higher than other proposals. For many, that raised fears among the companies’ officials that their plans wouldn’t be competitive on the market later this year, leading them to proactively request a rate reduction. A Family Care Health Plans official this past Thursday said the insurer will ask the state for even greater decrease in requested rates. Although some insurers have been using Obamacare as an excuse to hike premiums despite record profits, such rate hikes have been more rare and less extreme since the law’s passage:

“Consumers will have even more detailed information about marketplace plans, including the ability to compare — not just rates — but actual benefits offered on the plans side-by-side…Americans will be able to go online and figure out whether a plan costs more because it actually provides more robust benefits, or because an insurance company is just trying to gouge prices and maximize profits.”

With all this information available to everyone, the public will be able to see the comparison between how much they would be spending or how much companies will be charging. With 24 million Americans expected to gain coverage through the marketplaces by 2016, this can be a highly beneficial key to lowing these costs. 

Original Article and Credit: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/10/1994331/obamacare-forcing-insurers-lower-premiums/?mobile=nc

According to a recent article presented by Forbes, America may soon see rising costs of health care slowing down. A new issue in Health Affairs suggest there may be deeper and longer-lasting causes for the slowed growth, which could add up to savings of hundreds of billions of dollars in coming years.

“In one study, four Harvard Medical School researchers note that between 2009 and 2011, health care spending grew about 3% a year, after having risen at an average of 5.9% a year for the decade before that. Looking at data from 10 million people with health care plans from large companies, they found that changes to the plans and to the enrollees’ out-of-pocket expenses accounted for only about 20% of the slowing.”

A companion study by two Harvard economics professors concludes:

“that a host of fundamental changes—including less rapid development of imaging technology and new pharmaceuticals, increased patient cost sharing, and greater provider efficiency—were responsible for the majority of the slowdown in spending growth. If these trends continue during 2013–22, public-sector health care spending will be as much as $770 billion less than predicted. Such lower levels of spending would have an enormous impact on the US economy and on government and household finances.”

So what about ObamaCare? Forbes concludes that many who support it see this as a major contributing factor. 

Source and Credit: http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2013/05/07/health-care-cost-growth-may-be-slowing-long-term-new-studies-show/

Did you know that CouponDoc is on Twitter? Follow us for updates and all the great savings instantly as we post new coupons and the lastest news to help you save money.

The scientific breakthroughs for medicine grow every day while the need for these medications will never decrease. People young and old all get sick, and the need for medicines are crucial for preventing and treating diseases. In a recent article posted on CNN, authors Arthur Caplan and Zachary Caplan explain how pharmaceutical companies rip patients off with the high costs of medications.

Here is what they have to say:

“Prescription drugs cost Americans far more than they do people living in many other parts of the world. This is because drug companies spend a fortune on direct-to-consumer sales and marketing (which they don’t do in other countries) and because other nations negotiate better deals for drugs than private insurers do in the United States. Is there anything that can be done to lower costs and increase the availability of more affordable and equally effective drugs? Yes.”

As they continue, one resolution to this problem would be to replace name-brand drugs with generics. The only differences would be the name of the medication and the color or shape of the pill. Otherwise, both include the same active ingredients for patients. With all the competition within the pharmaceutical market however, this is not an easy solution in reality. As the tear between consumers, pharmaceutical companies, and the law is an ongoing debate as to whether this solution can work, patients will continue paying the price for these medications. 

To read more about the conflicts and struggles for the cheaper cost of medication, check out CNN’s original article here.

Source and Credit: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/25/opinion/caplan-prescription-drugs/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Everyone loves a good bargain. According to a recent article “Doctors Go Shopping: Price Comparisons Lead MDs to Lower Testing Costs” published by TIME, doctors who are not informed about how much tests, supplies, and other medical services actually cost is one of the sources of today’s escalating costs of health care. A new study by Johns Hopkins researchers published in the journal, JAMA Internal Medicine shows that informing doctors to the costs of the tests they’re ordering can lead to cheaper choices and hefty savings. To gain more information, scientists conducted a six-month experiment at Johns Hopkins Hospital by showing doctors prices and giving doctors the opportunity to comparison shop for tests they frequently ordered to see if showing them would adjust decisions about the products and services used at the hospital. The researchers identified 62 commonly ordered diagnostic blood tests and split the tests into two groups. While half of the tests came with their price, the other half did not. The researchers compared the buying behavior of the physicians and found that showing the pricing information resulted in a 9% cut in use of the tests overall and a savings of over $400,000 over the six months. By comparison, there was a 6% increase in the use of the tests without pricing information over the same time period. Researchers say the savings can be largely credited to the simple principles behind comparison-shopping. Even if this was true, do doctors ultimately have the time, heart, and patience to research costs to help their patients? With a little effort, these possible savings can contribute to cheaper costs.

However, author Alexandra Sifferlin continues on with an inevitable downside: the pricing didn’t seem to make a difference in a doctor’s ordering behavior for all tests. Some specialized diagnostics such as MRI exams were ordered at the same frequency even when their cost was made available. These tests generally don’t have many alternatives, and are typically ordered only once for each patient, says the researchers. Saving money can only go so far.

As the article conclusively points out: “And that points to the fact that comparison shopping won’t, and can’t be the only answer to solving the problem of rising health care costs, since every patient situation will require different sets of tests and follow up procedures. But there are plenty of opportunities where price comparisons could lead to more cost effective choices, and taking advantage of those windows could still lead to substantial savings.” What do you think?

Credit and Source: http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/16/study-hospital-cuts-costs-when-it-shows-doctors-test-fees/

Coupon Doc is proud to introduce an exciting new product - our very own discount card.

Until recently, we only offered manufacturer discounts on medications. These discounts are substantial, and can often save users big money on the co-pay for their medications, but there was one catch - you had to have insurance coverage in order for these discounts to apply. Now, for all of our uninsured and underinsured users, we offer one, full-access discount card that will work on any FDA-approved medication at almost any pharmacy in the United States. The discount offered by this card is huge - it can be up to 30% off the list price of a name-brand medication, and as much as 80% off the price of a generic medication.

Click here to be taken to our discount card page where you can either print off our coupon, or have it texted to your phone. Show the coupon printout or text to your pharmacist along with your purchase for an instant discount. 

www.coupondoc.com/discountcard

I’ve been around the pharma industry practically all my life - from the days that pharma was coming out with one blockbuster drug after another to now when the industry is going through some massive changes. Recently, I signed up for a meetup in NYC that’s going to cover the topic of Pharma 2.0. During the signup process I was asked, “how is the pharma industry changing?” Obviously, the pharma industry has already changed a ton in a number of areas, but some of the trends that I believe will continue are shrinking sales forces and disruption of existing marketing strategies.
 
It’s no news that sales forces across the industry have been cut by 15% to 30% across the top drug makers. This reflects a few trends - doctors / practices refusing to see sales reps, doctors increasingly deferring to peer journals and online tools to obtain information on medications, and a number of blockbusters going generic. This is supported by the fact that 40% of primary care physicians today do not see sales reps and almost half of the visits made by reps to general practitioners were less than five minutes last year. 

So one has to ask if doctors are refusing to see sales reps, how does pharma communicate the important stuff such as information on new therapies and the savings cards that we offer on our site to doctors and their patients? Well for one, instead of spending millions on untargeted TV ads, pharma needs marketing tools that conveys information in a digital, targeted, and low cost way. 
 
For example, at My Coupon Doc we are integrating our discounts into EHRs and kiosks to address precisely this issue. Instead of detailing paper savings cards to doctors who never passed them on to their patients, we wanted to give pharma the ability to digitize this process. By using existing technologies we pass along savings in a way that helps scale brands and doctors can actually manage. This way the savings programs that are meant for patients actually get to them.
 
I am a proponent of converting existing operations to a digital form whenever possible and believe this applies well to the pharma marketing model as a whole.
 
Sources: 
http://m.strategy-business.com/article/00095?gko=777a7
 
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/pharma-life-sciences/pharma-2020/pharma-2020-marketing-the-future-which-path-will-you-take.jhtml

Two major reports have been released recently on the consistently rising cost of healthcare. AARP, a membership organization for individuals fifty and older, published a study finding that the price of drugs most commonly used by older Americans rose by about 25% from 2005 to 2009. What’s especially scary about this statistic is that most of the rise is because of an increase in price for brand and specialty drugs in 2008 and 2009 (generic prices actually decreased during this period). Another scary statistic that AARP found: the average annual cost of therapy for brand name medications was $1,382 in 2009. That’s for just one drug!

Find the original report here.

Meanwhile, PricewaterhouseCoopers has also released a report stating that they estimate the cost of healthcare services is expected to rise 7.5% in 2013. Given the consistently rising costs of treatment and medication, you can expect more and more employers to shift these costs towards their employees.

As always, we emphasize at My Coupon Doc that we can help with these name-brand prescription medication expenses. Chances are, you’ll find a coupon for the medication you take here on our site. And, if you sign up for an account, we’ll even send you an e-mail with your coupons every month so that you never forget to save when you go to the pharmacy.

The rise of shows such as “Extreme Couponing” and blogs such as Fabulessly Frugal in the last few years underscore one trend - that people are looking to save money, and that coupons are the quickest and most painless way to do so. Cash-strapped consumers cannot arbitrarily increase their household income, and they can’t necessarily cut back on the purchase of necessities, such as food or medicine, but they can, at least partially, control how much they spend on those necessities through the use of manufacturer coupons. The New York Times even ran a headline piece today detailing some of the complex strategies consumers use to save just a few dollars off products like tuna and milk.

At My Coupon Doc, we feel privileged to join the fight to help American consumers afford the products they need to ensure that their families are attaining the quality of life they deserve. However, we’re not about small savings on toiletries and inexpensive goods - we’re working to save you hundreds of dollars a month on the medications you need to take to stay healthy. Each coupon we source can easily save you over $40-50 on your prescription medications each time you take them to the pharmacy. The easy part of our job is providing a product that works -these coupons are simple to download, and don’t require any work to redeem other than bringing them to the pharmacy. The hard part is to get the word out - we’d appreciate you as our viewers, if you’ve found our site useful, to get the word out and tell your friends about mycoupondoc.com. Word of mouth advocacy is powerful, especially when it’s among individuals trying to save money for their families.

With uncertainty swirling as the Supreme Court continues to debate whether the 2010 health care reform law is constitutional or not, only one thing is for sure – healthcare costs continue to rise for the typical American family, and that includes families that are covered under employer insurance. In fact, due to the constant rising costs of healthcare, employers are increasingly turning to higher deductibles and co-pays to pass along those costs to their employees. CNN Money writes that “Last year, workers’ out-of-pocket costs rose 9.2% to $3,280 for a typical family of four” ( CNN Money ). Worse yet, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight – costs have risen dramatically each of the last five years, and show no sign of slowing down. If the Supreme Court strikes down the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, many individuals will be likely to pay even more out-of-pocket.

A large portion of this spending increase is due to the rise in medication costs. Over the last decade, co-pays on medications have more than doubled. That’s why My Coupon Doc’s mission is to find you any coupons and savings that are out there for your name-brand prescription medications. Our site has over 400 coupons indexed on the most popular medications out there, so that you can save every time you pick up your prescription or OTC med at your pharmacy. Some of these coupons even reduce your co-pay to zero! So spend some time on our site, and feel free to reach out to us at contactus@mycoupondoc.com if you can think of other ways we can help you save.