5 Key Facts About the Nice Pharmacy Program
At Nice Healthcare we are primary care medical providers who believe in total person wellness, prevention and partnering in your health first and foremost. The best way to do this is through healthy eating, exercise, stress reduction and quality sleep. There are times that medications can be necessary, and we want to be your partner in you and your family’s sick times and for basic chronic conditions as well.
We’ve spent a lot of time researching the most commonly prescribed medications and the most innovative, cost effective fulfillment options so that we can provide the medications our patients need with no out-of-pocket costs.
Nice is NOT a pharmacy
While we call it a pharmacy program, Nice Healthcare is not a pharmacy. We do not store or deliver any medications ourselves. In fact, all prescriptions are filled by local in-network pharmacies or an online pharmacy we partner with. This is just like the experience you’re used to with your other clinic, just at a fraction of the cost and it’s infinitely more convenient.
Medications must be prescribed by a clinician
When we talk about ‘free’ prescriptions or medications, that doesn’t mean that you get to add every medication from our formulary to your shopping cart and check out with enough meds to fill a cabinet. All medications must be prescribed by a Nice clinician to treat a condition that a patient is experiencing. Even for something as simple as a headache, you’ll have to schedule a visit and have the clinician prescribe it before you can pick it up at the pharmacy free of charge. But that brings us to the next point.
Not all prescriptions are free
Based on our research, we have carefully selected over 550 of the most common medications that will save the most people time and money and offer them to our patients for free. But that doesn’t mean that we include every brand, dose or form of the medication in question. Our formulary is limited, but it still covers over 60% of all medications that are provided through your traditional health plan.
To be clear, we can prescribe medications that aren’t in our formulary, but in those cases, you’ll have to use your health insurance or HSA to pay for the medication. At least with Nice, they’ll still be waiting for you by the time you get to the pharmacy!
We do not prescribe controlled substances
Our formulary does not include controlled substances and our clinicians will not prescribe them to you. We will happily refer you to a specialist that is better suited to diagnose and treat the symptoms that could warrant such a medication.
Prescriptions can be picked up at a pharmacy or shipped to you
We’ve built a network of over 60,000 pharmacies nation-wide that can fill the prescriptions we write. This includes local neighborhood pharmacies as well as larger ones like Walmart, Costco and even CVS. We’ve managed to reduce overhead costs by avoiding pharmacies like Walgreens, who charge huge margins to work with businesses like us.
In some cases, we’ll even ship medications directly to you at no additional charge. This can take some time however, which is why it’s predominantly used for chronic medications, which are taken on a recurring basis and aren’t needed immediately.
How do you use the Pharmacy Program?
If, through a scheduled medical visit with one of our licensed Family Nurse Practitioners or Physician Assistants, it is determined that a medication would be medically recommended, they can prescribe it.
If it’s for an acute condition, we’ll send the prescription to the pharmacy of your choice. When you arrive at the pharmacy, simply show them the “Nice Rx card” in your mobile app and walk away with your medications. It’s that simple.
For chronic medications, we’ll mail the prescription right to your home with no shipping or processing fees. If you need medication before it arrives in the mail, we can send a ‘bridge’ prescription to the pharmacy of your choice. If you run out of prescriptions, you can simply schedule a visit with your clinician and request a refill.
For more explicit instructions on how to get a prescription read our blogs about getting started with Nice. Read this one if you need help accessing your account or this post if you need help navigating or using the Nice app.