Thirty years ago, I was the kid peering over the counter at the pharmacist while my mom figured out what my medication cost and if our benefits covered it. When it didn’t, I watched my family do everything they could to pay for my life-saving medicine. Today, I'm the one at that counter, doing the same thing for her. A lot has changed across technology and consumer experience in three decades. Healthcare hasn't kept up.
Legacy ePrescribing makes filling a prescription harder and more expensive than it should be. Much of it comes down to incentives pointing the wrong way: a handful of middlemen steering where prescriptions go, cost and choice removed from the patient in a system designed for someone else's bottom line. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
The era of patient choice has arrived. Now, when you receive a prescription, it’s possible to actually see your choices, the price, what's in stock, how fast it ships, where it's cheapest, and you get to pick what works for your life. No guessing. No runaround. No surprises at the counter. It's not a someday dream. Photon is making this an everyday reality.
I’ve spent 20 years of my career trying to create change from the inside, ten of them at Surescripts. Here's what I came to know: the best way to help patients isn't fighting the old system. It's building a better one right alongside it, giving choice back to the patient before they get to the pharmacy counter. Buckminster Fuller put it best: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." That's the work I said yes to.
Photon is the new model. It’s truly patient-first. Patients see their options up front, and get to choose. Prescribers don't have to shop around for their patients, and they field fewer callbacks and reroutes. Pharmacies can reach patients before they walk away. The care team’s incentives finally point the same way: patients get their medicine, easily and affordably.
I’m so optimistic about Photon’s mission of putting patients back in charge that I came here to help it reach as many people as possible. As Head of Platform Partnerships, I’m teaming up with other platforms, EHRs, and clinical workflow companies who want prescribing that actually works for the people they serve. If that's you, let's talk. Together, we can make the easy, transparent version of filling a prescription the standard experience, for a lot more people, a whole lot sooner.
The better system is here. Let's go put it in more hands. I can't wait to scale it across the nation with you.
Kat Thorp
Head of Platform Partnerships
Photon Health