Making Healthcare More Affordable with Doug Hirsch, Co-Founder & CEO, GoodRx

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In this episode of TD Cowen’s FutureHealth Podcast Series, Doug Hirsch, Co-Founder & CEO of GoodRx speaks with Charles Rhyee, Health Care Technology Analyst Charles Rhyee. They discuss the problems of access and affordability in healthcare, as well as how GoodRx’s offerings help patients find prescriptions at the lowest prices and increase patient access to care. Press play to listen to the podcast.

Doug co-founded GoodRx in 2011. The company provides access to price transparency and affordable solutions for generic and brand medications. This has saved Americans $30 billion on prescription medications since its founding. They also provide affordable and convenient medical provider consultations via telehealth.

Doug has spent decades building technology that helps everyday consumers, starting as one of the first employees at Yahoo! before moving onto Facebook as VP of Product, and then founding DailyStrength.

Transcript

Intro/outro speaker:

Welcome to Cowen Insights, a space that brings leading thinkers together to share insights and ideas, shaping the world around us. Join us as we converse with the top minds who are influencing our global sectors.

Charles Rhyee:

My name is Charles Rhyee, Cowen’s healthcare technology analyst, and welcome to the Cowen FutureHealth podcast. Today’s podcast is part of our future health 2021 conference series that continues Cowen efforts to bring together thought leaders, innovators, and investors to discuss how the convergence of healthcare technology and consumerism is changing the way we look at health, healthcare, and the healthcare system. And in this episode, we’ll talk about digital tools that improve access and affordability to healthcare. And to discuss the topic with me is Doug Hirsch, co-founder and co CEO of GoodRx, consumer focused digital healthcare platform. GoodRx provides access to price, transparency and affordability solutions for generic and brand medications. Having helped American save 30 billion on prescription medications since its founding in 2011, as well as providing affordable and convenient medical provider consultations via telehealth. Thanks Doug for joining us today.

Intro/outro speaker:

Thank you for having me.

Charles Rhyee:

So maybe start, would love to get how you got to founding GoodRx. I think it all stems from your experience with the healthcare system. So it would be great to hear that background here.

Doug Hirsch:

Well, thanks again for having me. And it’s a unique time to talk to you because we’re just about approaching our ten-year anniversary. So it’s fun to look back and to remember back to 10 years ago, when I was just an interested, passionate consumer, who was frustrated by the price that I received when I went through a local pharmacy. I had to get a prescription by a doctor and I had it in my hand and I walked into my local chain pharmacy and they said, “500 bucks,” and I said, “That’s insane.” And because I’m also naturally thrifty, I took it back and went to the other chain pharmacy across the street and they said, “250.” I was now intrigued that I found 50% savings by just simply crossing the street. So I took it to a third pharmacist who said, “400,” but then when I left, she chased me in the parking lot and said, “Well, let’s cut a deal.”

Doug Hirsch:

And it just blew my brain as just an American consumer who had insurance by the way, that there was such a price fluctuation in healthcare, I really did not know that. And so that was the genesis of GoodRx way back when. And step one for us was just to try to gather this information. And that’s something we’re still pursuing today because so much healthcare information still remains locked up. But then step two is to try to educate consumers so they can understand that with a little bit of legwork, they could actually find tremendous savings. Even today, a decade later, 70% of consumers are unaware that drug prices vary, they don’t understand that just having an insurance card in your wallet, that’s just not the answer. People think that, “Oh, I’ve got a card, and so healthcare is going to be affordable.”

Doug Hirsch:

And we had the, I’ll say fortune or luck, to start our odyssey in prescriptions, which is the most consumer focused, I’d say area of healthcare, because you walk into a retail store and you pay with a credit card and you often buy other things there too. And so honestly, the genesis of GoodRx and the goal of GoodRx remains to just help educate consumers, to help them see that there are ways to find affordability, because too many consumers are simply just bailing out of the system and saying, “I just won’t get that medicine, I just won’t get that care because it’s going to cost too much, or it’ll bankrupt me.” And there’s real, real problems in this country, as you probably already know, just getting consumers ultimately to the care that they need. Yeah.

Charles Rhyee:

Yeah. And when we think about that, access and affordability of healthcare, and it has been an increasing concern for Americans here. In your mind, what are some of the key factors driving this issue?

Doug Hirsch:

So, it’s fun because when we first built GoodRx, GoodRx is comparison price shopping basically, that’s the genesis of GoodRx. And there’s all these other markets that people do this in, and healthcare dwarfs all of them. Healthcare is, I believe it’s 3.8 or $4 trillion a year is what we spend in this country. And that grew 47% just from when we started the company. So this number just continues to grow, grow, grow. And on a per capita basis, we’re spending almost $12,000 per person. So there’s just this tremendous level of expenditure, this massive market. And it just remains this mysterious black box. And the worst part is that there’s a lot of talk about drug prices going up and down and healthcare prices going up and down, but the consumer out-of-pocket is what we focus on.

Doug Hirsch:

And that’s the worst, that’s the part where consumers are just paying more and more as deductibles go up and prior authorizations and limited formularies and all these other fancy words, co-insurance is a big one these days. These are all fancy words for saying, “Hey, you consumer, you’re going to pay more. And the other constituents in the system are going to pay less.” And so the Americans are simply just paying more out of pocket, their cost burden gets greater, and they’re caught in this, this pinch where they just don’t know how to navigate the system anymore. I’m old enough to remember having an insurance card was really all that I needed. And so really what GoodRx is focused on is, again, trying to educate consumers, trying to give them access to these affordability solutions, because there really are incredible ways to save. Name any other market where you can regularly save consumers 80% or even more.

Doug Hirsch:

It breaks the brain, but that’s the structure of our system. GoodRx users save an average of $60 off the expected cost of their prescription, they save an average of almost 80%. and oftentimes, here’s the crazy part, the savings we find are even greater than the average commercial insurance. So over 55% of prescriptions filled on GoodRx were actually cheaper than a typical insurance copay for the most popular hundred prescriptions. And so really in a nutshell, as I said before, a little legwork will generate tremendous savings for consumers. And this isn’t just about saving a few bucks here and there, for a lot of consumers, it’s literally like, “Hmm, it’s food or rent.” A few bucks matters a lot to many, many Americans. It’s somewhat how few resources many Americans have, and so a few bucks can go a really long way to keeping people healthy.

Charles Rhyee:

Yeah. And when you think of it that way, because you talked about the out-of-pocket costs in particular. Because I think a lot of people, at least myself, I think when we first thought about the discount card programs, et cetera, you tend to narrowly focus on what the cash pay market is. Historically, because to your point, if I had insurance, that used to be enough, so if I had my insurance card I’d go in. But that really seems to be changing a lot. And I think cash pay narrowly is maybe 5% of the market. Maybe talk a little bit about how you’ve really been able to expand the market for accessing better discounts across all [inaudible 00:06:45].

Doug Hirsch:

Yeah. I, I swear. I feel like every time I have a conversation with someone, especially people who live in fancier parts of town who have a few credit cards, they all think, “Well, that GoodRx, that’s just for unemployed, low-income people, that’s not for me.” And the reality is it’s for everyone, because the shocking cost of healthcare is hitting everyone. I don’t care who you are, our system is so broken and there’s so many loopholes and qualifications and things that consumers have to go through that everyone has seen a bill for a thousand dollars plus, everyone’s seen that strange experience where you went to an ER, or you went to a doctor. And so we all need help, is the punchline. You may be able to afford two or 3000 bucks, but that doesn’t make it any better for you, it still remains a huge problem.

Doug Hirsch:

And so keep in mind that for those of us who have insurance, 40% of employed adults have an HDHP. Oftentimes they have deductible coverage on it as well. Again, three quarters of people that come to GoodRx have insurance and are still paying too much for their prescriptions. And so we’re really, really proud of our ability to help people, because again, it’s this epidemic of the under-insured that leads to about one in every three prescriptions being left on the counter. Imagine the pharmacist puts on the bottle, the whole bit, and it still just gets left there. So what GoodRx ultimately does for both the cash pay market, and again, for I’d say people who have insurance, but still choose to use cash pay, is we increase adherence. People who come to GoodRx end up not only filling prescription the first time, but they stay on it because they find affordable solutions and education.

Doug Hirsch:

Which ultimately leads to better outcomes, where consumers then, by taking your statin, you don’t end up in the hospital, you don’t have a heart attack, et cetera, et cetera, and all the follow-on effects. And so yeah, we’re just really, really proud of it. We did some studies recently and found that thanks to GoodRx actually there’s been over 78 million prescriptions that otherwise simply people would have walked away because of cost, that GoodRx has helped people to save. There’s been over a thousand fewer hospitalizations, that’s people who literally were able to afford the drug and then took the drug and ultimately avoided going into the hospital. And so we’re just really, really proud of some of the impacts… Sorry, those 10,000 hospitalizations were just around Statin just around people being able to take those Statins to stay healthy. So in a nutshell, we’re trying to help people that have both, again, those traditional cash pay people, like you said, but there’s this much, much larger market of under-insured Americans we’re trying out too.

Charles Rhyee:

Yeah. And then maybe this is a good segue, then let’s talk a little bit about the core offering here. Maybe talk about, how is it that you’re able to provide consumers with the lowest price when they go to the GoodRx app?

Doug Hirsch:

Well, the magic number is 200 billion. We get 200 billion price points every day from sources across all of healthcare. And that’s important. If you, again, go back to when me and my two co-founders got started, we were just in the information gathering business. We were a bunch of geeks and engineers and product people, I worked at Facebook and Yahoo before that. And we just were like, “There must be answers on the internet.” And so that was the original quest and it remains so today, which is, how do we get this information? Not only get it, but then clean it up and make it clean, and make it in a way that a consumer could just simply be able to type in the name of a drug and see answers, just like you should at any, I’d say interactive experience. And so what we’ve established over 10 years is incredible relationships and contracts with all the key stakeholders in healthcare.

Doug Hirsch:

So that would be the PBMs, the pharmacies, manufacturers, patient assistance programs. So we can basically bring all these prices to get all these 200 billion price points together every day, and then just spit out the best one for you, the one that makes most sense for Charles to get his statin or whatever that is. We work with pretty much every major PBM in the country, and we continue to add new ones all the time, which ultimately allows us to drive better pricing for consumers. And then with this technology that we have, this incredible proprietary technology, we take all those price points, we put them all together. But again, to the consumer, it looks super simple. One of the things I do as a product guy is I think about most importantly what not to show you. There’s too much noise in the healthcare, I’m just going to basically show you a price and then a coupon which consumers understand from other industries.

Doug Hirsch:

And it just makes it so simple. So a consumer comes in, they do a search. They see a bunch of prices. if they see one that they like, they can literally on their app or their mobile phone, they can grab a coupon, which they can show to their pharmacist and get that price. It works at pretty much every pharmacy across the country, and again, it saves consumers, I think on average, over 70% off retail. And so that’s our key offering. And then we have other products like GoodRx gold, for example, that’s a subscription-based product to unlock even lower prices. And pretty much, again, we’re still ultimately though in the information business, we’re just trying to make it really simple for consumers to demystify healthcare so that people can have information and ultimately save.

Charles Rhyee:

Yeah. And obviously I think the vast majority of business has been tied to generic drugs. But I think you’ve had some interesting statistics regarding how often people search for discounts on branded drugs, which obviously, because they are branded, by definition there’s really no discounts necessarily available. That’s going to create opportunities for you. Maybe talk about your manufacturer solutions offering and what kind of value that brings, not only to consumers, but also to drug manufacturers.

Doug Hirsch:

So one of the things you’ll hear as we talk today is that we’re a reactive company in many ways. Which is, we’re just listening to the consumers that come to the GoodRx and use our products and seeing what those pain points are. We ask them, we survey them, and they say, “Hey, yeah it’s great what guys did on generics, but what about brand?” 20% of the searches on GoodRx are for brand name drugs. And traditionally we’ve been showing consumers, I don’t know, 200 to $200,000 coupons. Nobody wants to see a coupon that says, “Hey, I’m going to take that 2,500 of drug and make it 2000,” that’s not a good experience for consumers [inaudible 00:12:17] for a long time. And so we reached out to pharma… Actually, I should let me reverse that, pharma actually mostly reached out to us and said, “We know that the consumers are coming on a GoodRx. We don’t want to show them $2000 coupons either. Let’s work together to see what we can do.”

Doug Hirsch:

And so I’m really, really proud of the more recent momentum we have around brands and savings. Where consumers come to go to GoodRx and instead of showing them a silly $2000 coupon, we actually have integrated copay cards, we have integrated patient assistance programs. We’re taking anything that we can do to drive the cost of that drug down. And in many cases we can drive that cost down to almost zero, where a consumer can come in and within a GoodRx experience, can grab a coupon just like they traditionally did on the generic side, and be able to find tremendous savings that they can usually pair with their insurance. But even if they’re uninsured as well, there’re tremendous discounts. And so we’re really, really proud of what we built on the brand side. And you’ll see a lot more momentum there. Again, this is a $30 billion annual market of just brands trying to get in front of consumers.

Doug Hirsch:

And we’re happy to connect them in a way that’s positive for the consumer and honest. And we let a consumer know that they may be being paid for this. Our client renewal rate is fantastic where, again, the manufacturers are seeing tremendous performance and they’re seeing that their client base is here, and we have a unique way of talking to their consumers. And then more recently we acquired a company called HealthiNation. And what HealthiNation does is provide incredible content provided by health care professionals that a consumer can also consume. So again, let’s say a doctor says, “Hey, you need drug X, it’s a $20,000 drug,” whatever. You can come to GoodRx, you can learn about the drug, learn about the side effects, hear from a doctor about it, and then find discounts that could drive the cost of that drug way, way down into again, $10 or zero even in many cases. And so we’re really, really proud of it, the growth has been tremendous. Expect to see more action here in the future.

Charles Rhyee:

And that’s pretty interesting. And it sounds like you’re able to do all within the GoodRx experience, it’s not like you are necessarily handing somebody off and they go off and they get linked to a manufacturer website that they have to, again, navigate through. But you bring all the necessary information to them to be able to register and qualify for some of these discounts. Is that the right characterization?

Doug Hirsch:

Exactly. It’s all about simplicity. Healthcare is just so scary. I read a stat recently that 7% of Americans know what a deductible or a copay is. And so when you throw out these fancy terms and explanation of benefits and prior authorizations formulas, you just lose people. And oftentimes it’s the people that are least qualified. Older Americans, people aren’t comfortable technology, and we throw these complicated words in front of them. So notice again, GoodRx, you literally just come to GoodRx, you type in the [inaudible 00:14:48] drug, we give you answers, actual things that you can do without ever having put in all sorts of other information or do complicated things. It’s meant to be simple. And again, even across the board, I challenge you to go to your health insurance website, look it up and try and find a price for a drug or procedure. It’s incredibly hard to do, and we’re really proud that we’ve made it simpler.

Charles Rhyee:

And obviously I think more recently you announced a partnership with Sanofi in regards to this. Maybe talk a little bit about how that relationship came around. Is this another example of them reaching out to you, recognizing you know, that a lot of their patients were seeking out information from GoodRx first?

Doug Hirsch:

It is. That’s a great example. We’ve had actually multiple Sanofi executives reach out to us over the last few years and basically said, “Help. We want to get in front of these consumers, we want to show them that they’re…” Sanofi has actually incredible programs to bring down the cost of insulins. And they’ve been doing incredible work to try to make insulins more affordable, but it’s only as good as the people that know about it. And diabetes, I think is if there’s one particular health condition I’m focused on right now, it’s diabetes because, there’s so much cost with diabetes. I just read some stat that 1% of US GDP goes towards dialysis. So the more people we can keep away from dialysis and end-stage renal failure, it’s a huge win.

Doug Hirsch:

Not just for consumers, not just for the manufacturer, but also for literally our government. And so yeah, I’m so proud to partner with Sanofi to make insulins and other prescriptions more affordable. Again, like you just said, you go to GoodRx, you simply look up the drug, we’ll show you exactly what to do, you can apply real time. And then we’re going to show you both, again, copay cards, we’ll also show you a patient assistance programs if relevant. It’s super simple for consumers to finally take control of their insulins and not have to ration or not pick up the drug this month, because again, the downstream effects are terrible and there are affordable solutions. And so again, one of many partnerships, but that’s one that I’m particularly proud of.

Charles Rhyee:

No, that’s really helpful. And one of your other new offerings in the last few years has also been a move into telehealth, and it kind of coincides with we just talked about, expanding, listening to what your consumers are wanting. Maybe talk a little bit about your entry into telehealth here. Obviously I think you acquired, HeyDoctor, which is now a GoodRx Care, but maybe talk a little bit about what got you into this area.

Doug Hirsch:

Sure. So again, in our reactive responsive world that we live in, which is we were hearing from consumers that were coming to GoodRx, they were printing out a coupon or downloading the app, and then they realized, “Oh, wait, I don’t have a prescription.” It’s hard to fill a prescription without a prescription in this country, as you can imagine. And so we thought, “Well, we’ve got to fix this.” And fortunately, we did this prior to COVID, this was back in 2019 where we acquired HeyDoctor. And again, the point there was to say, “Can we create an efficient visit with a healthcare professional where a consumer can pay a fair cash price, not have to deal with all the wackiness that comes with insurance, and be able to see a physician or healthcare professional, and if it’s appropriate, then we’re going to get them a prescription.” And so I’m very proud, we have a large number of services now that you could use GoodRx care, where you can hop on literally very quickly to see a healthcare professional.

Doug Hirsch:

And if it’s relevant, get a prescription and then we’ll even fill that prescription by mail or send it to the pharmacy of choice. But the whole point of this whole exercise is it’s affordable and it’s efficient. Because one thing I’m obsessed with also is making sure that you’re seeing the appropriate credential. You don’t need to have the world’s most famous doctor to write a Statin prescription or to do birth control. You need to have someone who’s appropriately credentialed because then you can be more affordable, and you can use them to the maximum of their credential and you can use them efficiently. And so we’re really, really proud of just being able to roll out a service that solves those consumers’ pain points. And we’re really focused on the blocking and tackling of care. This is not about brain surgery or something fancy like that, this is about the things, the medications and the visits with a professional that just keep me on my medication, keeps me adherent, low risk prescription-associated conditions that basically a consumer can see someone and get on with their day, because that’s what they deserve.

Charles Rhyee:

But I would think that, and let’s say you need someone to refill a prescription for a statin, and you would want your primary care physician to know about that as well. Have you thought about, how do we start integrating, obviously what you’ve built as a great ecosystem and experience for consumers, but as we think about this $4 trillion healthcare economy effectively, you want it to probably eventually get integrated into your everyday healthcare experience. You want your doctor to be able to know what’s happening to you, because ultimately over time, he or she is responsible for your care.

Doug Hirsch:

Sure.

Charles Rhyee:

How do you think about that as, as we move forward here?

Doug Hirsch:

Well, the first problem is that too many Americans don’t have an ongoing regular relationship with a primary care physician. So yes, I’m very concerned about you just said, but I’m more concerned about the Americans who just don’t see a doctor at all. It takes more than 20 days on average to see a doctor in the US. And I can just tell you anecdotally, from everyone in my life where they’re just like, “Yeah, I’d love to go see a doctor, but I can’t get in, or it takes too long or they’re booked.”

Doug Hirsch:

Actually now, by the way with COVID, where we have this, what is it one billion undiagnosed conditions that are all being worked through the system, where good luck seeing a doctor right now, they’re all just slammed. And so step one is just to make sure people have access to a primary care physician. Step two, you’re exactly right, is to provide simple, easy-to-use tools, so that I, as a consumer can obviously let by primary care physician know about some of these other medications or healthcare interactions that I’ve had. And we make it really easy for consumers to do that, to share this information. Again, we’re not doing exotic stuff here. This is not the kind of stuff where out of adult field I’m suddenly taking drug X for condition Y.

Charles Rhyee:

Yeah, of course.

Doug Hirsch:

I think one of our most popular services is simple refills. Meaning like, “Hey, I’m already on this statin. Let’s check in, maybe I can get an emergency refill, or I can get a short term so that I can stay on this prescription until I can see that doctor, which can take 30 or 90 days.” Most of my best friends are primary care physicians, and we spend a lot of time with them frustrated, honestly, that they just can’t see every patient that comes through. And they appreciate a service like ours because it allows them to focus on the more serious stuff that they’ve got. But yeah, we are also focused on making sure that everyone across the system is able to interact and talk, it’s one of our big priorities.

Charles Rhyee:

Yeah, because I think it would be simple to do some integrations into the EMR systems, so that be [crosstalk 00:21:19] shared back. Or maybe it’s not that simple, is it? I don’t know.

Doug Hirsch:

Nothing in healthcare is as simple as it looks. Nothing in healthcare is… Common sense often you have to suspend, but it’s certainly a goal. Look, we are in the information transparency business, that’s ultimately, if I could boil down what I do, that’s it. And so we certainly aspire to that. Oftentimes we have to do workarounds because, believe it or not, fax machines are still alive and well in healthcare. But we’re trying, it’s a slog.

Charles Rhyee:

Obviously in response to COVID, you actually also launched a telehealth marketplace. Maybe talk about how the marketplace differs from GoodRx Care itself.

Doug Hirsch:

We are at our core, very much trying to get consumers to the right option. And if we see an opportunity to do it ourselves in a way that’s efficient and makes both a good business and good for consumer, we’ll do it ourselves, but we don’t want to be exclusive, we’re not the only people on the planet that are focused on healthcare. And so we’re always going to build out marketplaces and work with partners when it makes sense. And so look, we’re going to give you a choice. If a consumer wants to choose a mail order pharmacy, great, we have one, but there are other ones as well. I’m sure you know, Charles, that there are so many really incredible services that popped up in the last few years, many of which are incredibly well-funded too, that are focusing on certain things, whether it be, again, birth control or mental health or diabetes care or whatever it is.

Doug Hirsch:

And so we’re not exclusive, we don’t want you to live only in the GoodRx ecosystem, we want to get you the best option and the most affordable option. And so there are a number of really incredible companies that we’ve partnered up in any category, whether it be pediatrics or mental health, again, to ultimately empower consumers to have the best choice. And so I think when you look across many, many markets in healthcare, we’re going to evaluate the market, we’re going to say, “Are the good players that are doing it?” In which case let’s make them partners. And if there aren’t good players that are doing it, do we think we can do it better, then maybe we do it ourselves. It’s fun, because there’s, again, a four trillion dollar market, so we’ve got plenty of room to play. But ultimately my goal is to be a trusted advocate for the consumer. And they know that they start at GoodRx, they’re going to find the right answer, whether it’s provided by us or someone else.

Charles Rhyee:

So maybe thinking of that, and as we round out here, what do you think is next to you for GoodRx? What other areas can you see yourself moving in? Off the top of my head, I can imagine in the brand and manufacturer side, going into a hub services to help patient and doctors get through the prior authorizations required for some of these drugs as well. Maybe give your thoughts here as different areas that you think make sense for GoodRx.

Doug Hirsch:

We’re going to really focus on increasing our reach, strengthening our relationship with consumers, and continuing to build the lead trusted brand to deliver on our promise of affordable and convenient healthcare. Again, we listen to consumers. We’re there to try to fill these massive gaps that sadly are just getting bigger and bigger in this country. And so we’re going to continue to provide not just marketplaces, not just products, but also be proactive. I want to reach out to a consumer and not wait until you’re actually not feeling well, but I want to be like, “Hey Charles, you haven’t been to your primary care doctor in a year,” or, “We think that pill bottle is empty,” or, “Hey, are you looking to get a cholesterol test or an A1C test?” Or whatever. And really ultimately play a proactive role in guiding consumers to stay healthy.

Doug Hirsch:

I’m just obsessed with the preventative care. I’m obsessed with these, what should be inexpensive interactions with the healthcare system that just simply, unfortunately aren’t many times, which scare consumers off. And so we’re going to tighten those relationships with consumers, we’re going to bring more value, we’re going to generate higher LTV, of course, by having more engagements with these consumers. One great example is GoodRx Gold, where again, the prices in GoodRx Gold are amazing. We’ve brought down the cost of so many prescriptions to a very affordable price that pretty much any consumer can afford. And then we actually send you information that we reach out to you and say, “Hey, it’s time for refill.” And we have a much more engaged consumer there where we can talk to them, provide other valuable medical services, again, such as mail order or other services to that GoodRx Gold consumer, where they have more engagement.

Doug Hirsch:

And so there’s just so many more opportunities for us to personalize our experience for both consumers, but also for healthcare professionals who love GoodRx. So much of our successes is on the backs of these wonderful healthcare professionals and pharmacists who support GoodRx because they ultimately want consumers to get the care they need. And so we continue to build out great products that can help them to be better for their patients and be more efficient with their time. Again, such a huge market, so many different marketplaces and categories that are right for more disruption. And we intend to continue to focus on those opportunities to just deliver not only a great value to shareholders, but first and foremost, to just helping consumers figure out the American healthcare system in a new, more innovative, easier to use way that doesn’t scare them away from it.

Charles Rhyee:

And maybe if I could just ask you one last question, as we think about this big opportunity here, any one specific challenge that needs to, maybe not from a GoodRx standpoint, but from a system standpoint, in our healthcare system, any anything that you see coming that could really help accelerate that? Or anything that you’d like to see that could accelerate that consumer education and help people understand that there’re ways to find savings that, to your point, 70% of people aren’t even aware that there’re savings available to them outside of insurance.

Doug Hirsch:

I think getting more information unlocked so that we can present it to consumers in a way they can understand remains our top priority. So again, I would love to have access to co-pay, I would love to have access to more of the information that traditionally has been held hostage to whether it be hospitals or large health systems or insurers, and just make that information free so the consumer can ultimately know what they’re going to be able to afford. I always like to take the parallel with any other category. Can you imagine booking a plane ticket and having no idea what it was going to cost when you booked it until you have to get on a plane? Or even after, imagine you fly and you land and six months later you get a bill that says that flight was $12,000.

Doug Hirsch:

So we’re going to continue to focus on taking this really complex world of information, first of all, getting access to it and then delivering in a way that the consumer can understand. And again, being proactive about it so the consumer knows before they’re sick. Because I just think that if you set aside both the consumer even, and the business, this country as a whole, we have bad outcomes, especially for people of color, we spend more, we get less. And I think that GoodRx is uniquely positioned to try to attack that and create both a sustainable, profitable company, and also one that actually has a real impact on society.

Charles Rhyee:

Yeah. And that’s really great, and really appreciate the mission that you guys are trying to achieve here. And I think this is a good point to end here. And so, Doug, I want to really thank you for your time. I really appreciate you spending time with us to speak today. And I want to thank everyone who’s listening in, enjoy this episode and look forward to having you join us on future episodes.

Doug Hirsch:

Thank you so much.

Intro/outro speaker:

Thanks for joining us. Stay tuned for the next episode of Cowen Insights.


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