Service Invites Twitter Questions About Drug Prices

A local business called Change:Healthcare is offering consumer information on health and prescriptions via Twitter.

The free service is built on data collected from the business’s paying customers.

In about a minute, the Twitter tool can automatically tell users how much a particular medicine costs in a specific ZIP code.

Project Management Director Chris McIntyre says the prices are drawn from Change:Healthcare’s paid service. The company helps businesses and individuals track and manage their health care costs.

“Based on the millions of dollars worth of claims we have from all these employees we’re able to get an idea of what a prescription costs at Walgreen’s versus, you know, Publix. Using all this information we’re able to start to make estimates of what people can expect to pay in every neighborhood around the country.”

Users can also ask what a medical condition is, what a drug does, or the generic name for a particular medicine. Those answers come from reference databases created by other groups.

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