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I am incredibly prone to sinus infections. I get them so frequently that I had my sinuses X-rayed, and I was told that they were so small that I would be doomed to runny noses and migraines pretty much every time I got a cold. The only solution to this problem would be surgery.
As a busy college student, surgery and recovery do not exactly fit nicely into my schedule, so I developed a routine. Whenever I felt the onset of these symptoms, I booked an appointment with my local urgent care to be prescribed antibiotics.
These sinus infections were predictable and annoying, and going to urgent care so frequently was becoming a hassle. So, I tried to streamline the process of getting prescriptions without going to a doctor. I Googled “how to get sinus infection meds online,” and GoodRx came up.
I explored the site and quickly realized that I might be able to get my precious Amoxicillin without paying for an Uber and waiting an hour to be told I had the same condition as always. I was close to doing an online chat with a medical provider to discuss my issues and get medication — until I saw that I needed to pay $19.99 for a “reduced cost” prescription and additional fees to get the actual drug. Insurance it was.
GoodRx and similar sites, such as SingleCare, are innovative entrepreneurial health care ventures. They streamline the prescription process and, to some extent, bypass traditional medical institutions. Online medical providers dealing with prescription medications can be beneficial, but only if they are subject to stringent government regulation.
Since 2011, GoodRx has saved consumers $65 billion on prescription drugs through partnerships with manufacturers and software that identifies low-cost alternatives. The service and its counterparts aim to bring transparency to the health care industry.
Their services are marketed toward busy individuals, as they make medications more accessible by offering them at discounted rates, sometimes totaling less than an insurance copay. They also allow individuals to refill needed psychotropic medications, except for those on a list of restricted drugs.
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need tools like GoodRx to streamline visits and reduce costs because health care would be wholly accessible. In 2020, the Pew Research Center found that more than 63% of American adults believe in government-funded health care for all. However, in a polarized political system, a comprehensive health care bill is incredibly unlikely to pass, as it would disrupt the current health care system’s deep ties to American capitalism. In the meantime, GoodRx is a solid alternative.
While entrepreneurial activity may be a controversial solution to health care inequities, regulated entrepreneurship in the health care sector has made a positive socioeconomic impact. In a meta-analysis of entrepreneurship and public health sector institutions, researchers found that entrepreneurship has had a net positive impact on health care and innovation in the U.S.
Although there are more ideal paths to a more efficient health care system, entrepreneurship has generated immense positive change. In 2020, more than 350,000 Americans died from COVID-19. At the time, no vaccine or curative treatment existed. Thankfully, groups driven by both profit and public interest raced to produce effective vaccines that ultimately prevented an estimated 14.4 million deaths. However, companies are often bought out by large pharmaceutical corporations through acquisitions, which leads them to lose their ethical compass.
As such, supporting these ventures as solutions in the health care space is only feasible with stringent policy and regulation. Services like GoodRx pose risks in terms of overprescription and predatory user data policies. Recently, GoodRx was forced to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty for unauthorized sharing of data with platforms such as Facebook and Google. Data sharing undermines the mission of online health care service providers to mitigate costs — harming the very people they claim to help.
The framework of an online health care service is still worthwhile. But policy developments must ensure this effort is ethical. Stronger data protection laws need to be enforced. Legislation requiring companies to clarify additional costs separate from insurance would reduce confusion, and doctor-patient interactions should be more closely monitored. It should not be so easy for someone to log into a Telehealth appointment and get prescribed medication, especially when the medicine could be misused.
Ethics must be at the center of every decision regarding online health care services.
As advancements change the way we receive care, we must consider the associated dangers. For instance, is it OK for a long-form chat with a doctor to diagnose a condition and prescribe medication, even if it’s for something as common as antibiotics?
Moving forward, we need to accept that technology, entrepreneurship and health care will become increasingly intertwined. And now is the time to enact regulatory policy before major issues arise. Legislators must consider how to ensure patient trust in health care providers, in-person and online. While it is an incredible achievement that people can now receive care more easily and purchase medications at reduced costs, patient safety and care must remain the top priority. Profit-driven companies should not dominate this shift. Instead, innovations aiming for equitable change within the constraints of capitalism should take center stage.
Rachelle Evans is an Opinion Analyst who writes about health care and wellness in American politics and culture. She can be reached at evansra@umich.edu.
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