Saving Patients Millions with Prescription Cost Transparency in Epic

Brand-name medications account for only 10% of prescriptions in the U.S., but they make up almost 80% of spending on medication costs. To help reduce costs for patients, as well as overall costs for payers and health systems, Cedars-Sinai Health System used custom notifications in Epic to remind physicians when generic equivalents were available for certain expensive drugs. When physicians saw the reminder, they could quickly replace the prescription with a lower-cost alternative. Between November 2017 and June 2019, patients at Cedars-Sinai saved an estimated $2.6 million.

Cedars-Sinai has since started replacing the custom alerts with a standard tool in Epic to give providers a prescription price estimate at the time of ordering.

“Making medication costs transparent has been informative for physicians, too,” said Dr. Yaron Elad, cardiologist and associate medical director of clinical informatics at Cedars-Sinai. “We don’t always realize how expensive some medications are compared to generics that are just as effective. With the reminders, we’re seeing a difference in prescribing habits that’s saving money for our patients.”

Epic community members can learn more about Cedars-Sinai’s approach from their UGM slides and audio on the UserWeb.