Bid for Rx Web Site Now Online Using Auctions to Reduce Prescription Drug Costs

Bid for Rx, a free online auction service designed to reduce consumers’ prescription drug costs by 20-40 percent, is now available at BidforRx.com.

With Bid for Rx, a consumer with a legitimate doctor’s prescription can log onto the site, click on information about their prescription requirements to create a patient profile, and then participating, licensed pharmacies compete to provide the required prescription at the lowest total price.

Consumers include all their prescription and non-prescription medications in their patient profile, so Bid for Rx technology can alert pharmacies to potential drug interactions.

Pharmacies see only the prescription requirement and not any personal data about the consumer during the auction. The consumer, though, can see the name and address of all participating pharmacies and the pharmacies’ prices, plus any shipping.

After the auction is completed, consumers choose whether to release their personal information to a selected pharmacy to fill their prescription. Auctions take 24-72 hours at the consumer’s discretion. Longer auction times generally result in lower prices.

The reverse-auction technology for healthcare is patented, free to both consumers and pharmacies and completely secure.

Kevin Moshayedi, CEO of Bid for Rx’s parent company Medicine Online Inc., said: “Bid for Rx reduces prescription prices by increasing the number of pharmacies who can consider the consumer’s requirement, any discount coupons from pharmaceutical companies, etc., and by placing the pharmacies in an explicitly competitive marketplace. Beta testing confirms savings of 20-40 percent off list prices and proves the security and confidentiality of the process.” Approximately 120 pharmacies are participating in Bid for Rx now with company plans to increase participation to 1,000 pharmacies nationwide by year end.

Bid for Rx is designed for prescription drugs, as well as vitamins and alternative healthcare products. Bid for Rx expects that most of the participating consumers will seek auctions on their long-term – and usually expensive – prescription requirements. Consumers with tax-advantaged HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS (HSAs) and FLEXIBLE SAVINGS ACCOUNTS (FSAs) will save money that they can divert to other healthcare needs and receive a receipt from Bid for Rx to submit expenses under these plans.

“During beta testing, Bid for Rx received 320,000 page views per month from all across the country as well as a flood of e-mails asking for a full roll out,” Moshayedi said. “Among the most frequently asked questions were participation of Canadian pharmacies, whose prescription drug prices are much lower than in USA. Currently, Canadian pharmacies cannot legally supply prescription drugs to USA addresses. Our mission is to reduce pharmacy prices significantly for American consumers while abiding by all federal and state laws and regulations.”

Bid for Rx is a division of Medicine Online Inc. (MOL) which pioneered reverse-auction technology for healthcare in 2000. Medicine Online’s owners include board-certified physicians and dentists, who are actively seeking ways for more people to afford better healthcare.

Medicine Online operates a consumer healthcare Web site www.medicineonline.com with 25 million page views per month, and a professional healthcare provider Web site www.mol.net. Medicine Online also introduced Bid for Surgery in 2000, a popular and once-controversial auction site for plastic surgery that continues today, using the same reverse-auction technology as Bid for Rx.