Why Cut Employee Benefits When You Can Optimize Pharmacy Spend Instead?

Scripta helped clients realize $40 million in prescription savings in 2025. Here's how smarter Rx Navigation can help employers lower pharmacy spend without cutting what employees value in their benefits.

Rising healthcare costs are putting employers in a tough spot. How do you keep benefits affordable for your organization while continuing to offer coverage that members value?

Increasing employee contributions, raising deductibles or reducing coverage may help manage costs. But these changes can also leave employees paying more for the care they need.

Before making those trade-offs, take a closer look at your pharmacy benefits. Your plan may already have opportunities to save without changing coverage or shifting more costs to employees.

The key is knowing where to look and helping members take advantage of what you find.

Your Pharmacy Plan May Have More Savings Opportunities Than You Think

When employers look for ways to reduce pharmacy spend, negotiating better prices or changing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) may be among the first strategies they consider.

But even with competitive pricing in place, there may be another place to look: the prescriptions members are already taking.

That's because what members are prescribed, where they fill their prescriptions and how those prescriptions are written can all influence costs.

Here are a few opportunities worth exploring:

• Compare pharmacy prices. A prescription may cost less at a different pharmacy, even when the medication stays exactly the same.

• Check cash-pay options. Sometimes, using a coupon or paying cash can cost less than going through insurance. It's worth comparing both.

• Look at how prescriptions are filled. A different strength, formulation or days' supply may offer savings, depending on the medication and plan.

• Explore lower-cost alternatives. Generic, biosimilar or other medication options may cost less. Any change requiring a new prescription is ultimately up to the member's doctor.

Not every option will make sense for every member. But across a covered population, even smaller savings opportunities can add up.

And you don't necessarily need to change your PBM or redesign your benefits to find them.

Finding Savings Is One Thing. Helping Members Realize Them Is Another.

Consider a member who could save $30 a month by filling their prescription at a different pharmacy. That's $360 in potential annual savings for one person.

Now consider how similar opportunities across hundreds or thousands of members could add up.

But there's a catch: Those savings only become real when members know about their options and can act on them.

A member may not realize another pharmacy offers a lower price. Or they might be interested in a lower-cost medication alternative but aren't sure how to discuss it with their doctor.

That's why identifying potential savings is only part of the equation.

Members need clear information about what they could save, what a change would involve and where to turn for help. They also need confidence that any medication alternatives have been clinically reviewed and that their doctor makes the final prescribing decision.

When members understand their options and have support taking the next step, potential savings have a better chance of becoming realized savings.

And when those opportunities lower costs for both members and the plan, everyone benefits.

How Rx Navigation Helps Make Your Existing Benefits Work Smarter

Scripta works within your existing benefits design to find lower-cost prescription options and help members make informed decisions about their medications.

Our clinically governed, AI-powered Rx Navigation solution looks for savings opportunities based on the prescriptions members are taking. Every lower-cost option is clinically reviewed, and their prescribing doctor has the final say if the member wants to request a new script.

Through Scripta's Rx Navigator, members have easy-to-use tools that allow them to see personalized savings opportunities, compare costs and explore their options.

And they don't have to figure out the next steps alone.

Members who are eager to switch to a lower-cost medication can talk directly to their doctor, or enlist the help of a Scripta team member using the “Help Me Switch” feature in the app, or by calling our member concierge support line.

Through Scripta, members and prescribers are given clinically backed information and personalized guidance to make prescription choices easier to understand and act on.

For employers and health plans, this means an opportunity to reduce pharmacy spend without adding another complicated process for members to navigate.

What Could Those Savings Look Like?

Not every prescription change needs to save hundreds of dollars to make a difference.

For example, Scripta identified a prescription strength adjustment for a member taking atenolol that saved $14 per fill.

In another case, a member using Help Me Switch reduced their prescription out-of-pocket cost from $285 to less than $6 within 48 hours.

These are individual examples, and actual savings depend on the medication, plan and member's circumstances. But they show how opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed can make a meaningful difference.

For employers and health plans, the impact becomes clearer when those opportunities are realized across a larger member population.

In 2025 alone, Scripta delivered:

• $40 million in realized savings

• More than 105,000 prescription switches

• 100% client satisfaction

Those results reflect an important distinction: identifying potential savings is useful, but helping members realize them is what creates measurable value.

And when members can lower what they pay while their plan also saves, cost management doesn't have to come at the expense of the member experience.

Before Cutting Your Benefits, See What Your Plan Could Be Saving in Rx

Controlling benefits costs doesn't always have to mean asking employees to pay more or offering them less.

Sometimes, the opportunity is already there. It just takes a better way to find it.

By looking beyond negotiated medication prices and helping members explore clinically reviewed, lower-cost options, employers and health plans can make better use of their existing pharmacy benefits.

And with the right support, those opportunities can become realized savings for the plan and its members.

How much could your organization save with Rx Navigation?

Scripta can help you find out. Our free savings analysis uses your plan's data to identify potential savings opportunities, so you can see how your pharmacy benefits.