An iPhone application that may be the future of prescription management launched Monday at a pharmacy near you—if you happen to live on New York's Upper East Side.
Cambridge, Mass., startup ZappRx, working with two prominent Manhattan physicians and the Madison Avenue pharmacy Zitomer, is testing out its new mobile platform on a pilot group of New Yorkers. The aim is to automate the prescription process and help doctors manage that part of their practice electronically.
Using the ZappRx application, doctors can e-prescribe medications, patients can pay for them electronically (as well as order refills), and pharmacies can handle the insurance end of the process before the customer even shows up at the drugstore. Zitomer has set up a dedicated window for ZappRx users to speed checkout.
"There are very long lines [at pharmacies] because insurance fails 30% of the time at checkout," said Zoe Barry, ZappRx's founder and chief executive. "The goal is to have an express line, and you walk in, flip your phone, and walk out."
According to Ms. Barry, ZappRx is the first mobile application for prescriptions that combines all parts of the process into one service.
Dr. Garry Goldman, director of the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Dr. Richard Cohen, attending physician at New York-Presbyterian, are taking part in the test with a group of their patients.
One benefit of the mobile system, according to Ms. Barry, is that it lets doctors know their patients have picked up their medication. It will also coordinate prescriptions from other doctors, and check how drugs interact with each other.
Both doctors and pharmacies will pay a fee per-prescription for the service.
ZappRx is planning beta tests of its service in other cities across the U.S.
"Medical app experiments on New Yorkers" originally appeared in Crain's New York Business.
Send us a letter
Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.
