DENVER — Governor Jared Polis joined Colorado Democratic lawmakers Wednesday to introduce a series of bills aimed at cutting health care costs.These days, it’s easy to get just about anything from a vending machine — from water to candy, money to coffee, and in Colorado, even marijuana. It’s with that spirit of abundance and convenience in mind that Colorado lawmakers have introduced a bill to establish automated dispensing machines for prescription medications.
“The machine would be pre-stocked with typical drugs for the area and for the community. So if there's a high prevalence of diabetes, there might be a higher stock of diabetes medication,” Michaelson Jenet said.Patients would show up with their prescription, speak with a pharmacist who would appear on the machine remotely to walk them through the medication, check their insurance and payment options and answer questions, and then have their prescription filled.
InstyMeds is a company based out of Minnesota that uses automated machines to dispense medications. To date, it has filled nearly five million prescriptions. Colorado’s dispensing machines would be slightly different. They would require patients to have a video interaction with the pharmacist before receiving the medication.