E-prescribing advocates harness patient pressure

If vendor SureScripts gets its way, e-prescribing should develop a much higher profile among consumers, doctors and pharmacies over the next few weeks. Last Tuesday, the company kicked off what looks like a very comprehensive campaign promoting the use of e-prescribing, including virtually all of the nation's pharmacy chains and thousands of independents.

The campaign, interestingly, doesn't deluge physicians directly with pitches. Instead, it urges patients to sell their doctors on e-prescribing, helpfully providing them with a physician-oriented website (www.GetRxConnected.com) to help close the deal.

While SureScripts doesn't say as much in its announcement on the campaign (naturally), to me this suggests that the company has all but thrown its hand up in the air when it comes to recruiting physicians directly. As the company notes, only 4 percent of physicians' offices are prepared to e-prescribe, despite the fact that more than 40,000 pharmacies can accept such prescriptions.

Will patient pressure have an impact?  I think so. This kind of "push" strategy can work very well in retail--even though retailers are as loathe to change their buying patterns as doctors are their practice style. While doctors aren't going to change their habits overnight, repeated patient requests will get through. After all, not only are doctors concerned about keeping patients, they're certainly capable of learning something new from them.

Besides, what else can SureScripts do? Many proven physician marketing tactics don't apply here. For example, put friendly, attractive young men and women in suits and send them to pitch doctors directly, as pharmas do with new drugs, and it'd be a big bust. E-prescribing reps would have no educational updates or samples to offer.

Now, the question is whether efforts like this can move the needle enough to make a difference. Let's see, folks! - Anne

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