What Does the Rollout of Trump Rx Reveal?

Joseph Kleiman, president of Buzz Health, discusses the impact of Trump RX on transparency in drug pricing. In his conversation with Pharmaceutical Executive, he emphasizes the importance of early price visibility to help consumers make informed decisions, noting the dynamic nature of prices and potential shortages.

A transcript of his conversation with Pharmaceutical Executive can be found below:

Pharmaceutical Executive: What does the rollout of TrumpRx reveal about the real-world challenges of delivering clear, upfront pricing to patients?
Joseph Kleiman: I think understanding what transparency, or pricing transparency means to everyone is the first step. At its core, it's designed to make things as clear as possible for a consumer so they can make decisions on which options are best for them.

So, in general, I think what Trump RX is doing is fantastic anytime you give someone that opportunity or put pressure on organizations to make things clearer for patients when it comes to prescriptions, I think it's a great thing.

Pharmaceutical Executive: Where do you see the biggest gaps in price transparency today?
Joseph Kleiman: I think the sooner, the better.It's a dichotomy. You want to give real time information to consumers. What everyone also has to understand, however, is it's dynamic, and with price transparency comes fluctuation. And sometimes you can run into situations where, if you view a price online, if you don't go fill that prescription immediately, it may be different when you pick it up.

I still, that being said, feel like you should introduce it as soon as possible so consumers can do their research.

Pharmaceutical Executive: What are the most common operational hurdles that emerge after launching a pricing platform?
Joseph Kleiman: When it comes to initiatives like this, anytime you're talking about pricing and prescriptions, your biggest operational challenge is going to be price consistency and on a pharmacy level, drug availability.

So if you have a mass success at a particular pharmacythere's a reality that there might be shortages. It's not common, but it's something to pay attention to, and again, as an organization, stay on top of your pricing, make sure it's live, where it's visible, so there's not any bad experiences for consumers showing up, they're going to get one thing and they end up getting something different.