A product called Prescription Marketplace is set to roll out through Epic, the healthcare software firm. Prescription drug costs leave roughly four in ten adults across the country filling fewer orders than their doctors recommend.

The tool displays both the cash price and the insurance-covered cost of medications across different pharmacies, giving clinicians and health systems a way to compare what patients would actually pay under either scenario. According to the company, lower-cost options have long remained invisible at the point of prescribing, even when those options might keep patients on treatment they would otherwise forgo due to cost.

Joel Jones, who serves as Epic's vice president of clinicals and therapeutics and patient safety officer, described prescription non-adherence driven by out-of-pocket costs as a quantifiable obstacle to patient care, and said that surfacing lower-cost alternatives — including cash prices — within prescriber and patient workflows could help reduce that barrier. Mark Cuban, co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs, stated in a separate comment that insurance-listed prices do not always reflect the lowest available option, citing as an example a drug priced at $500 through a patient's plan that could be purchased for $100 at CostPlusDrugs.com, and arguing that patients deserve access to that comparison before leaving the physician's office.

Two pharmacy partners — Cost Plus Drugs and Amazon Pharmacy — are working alongside Epic as it develops the new feature. A summer 2027 launch window has been set for Prescription Marketplace.

The new capability extends an existing Epic tool — the Real-Time Prescription Benefit function — that lets clinicians view out-of-pocket costs for a patient's covered medications and surfaces lower-cost generic options. According to figures released by Epic, the tool helped patients collectively avoid roughly $250 million in prescription costs during 2025.

Jeff Park, who leads digital prescription company Waltz Health as its president, said the announcement gives both patients and doctors broader visibility into drug pricing. Park described the development as pointing in the right direction and representing a meaningful step ahead.

Park noted that navigating prescription costs, benefit rules, coverage details, formulary options, manufacturer assistance programmes, and available alternatives does not fit neatly into the span of a routine appointment. He added that Waltz Health draws on payer and benefit data alongside cash, specialty-drug, and direct-manufacturer pricing to surface real-time cost comparisons, steering patients toward the appropriate medication and pharmacy without adding steps to provider workflows.

Jones stated that removing price surprises from those workflows and from MyChart would allow patients, providers, office staff, and pharmacists to make more informed choices with less back-and-forth. He also said that distinguishing between a medication that proved ineffective for a patient and one that went unfilled altogether would become easier for clinicians. Jones noted that when a patient settles a bill in cash, that information does not always make it through to the relevant parties.