Ever been blindsided by the staggering cost of a prescription? Andy Chan, the founder of ScriptScouts, joins Suzi to unravel the perplexing world of medication pricing and how his platform is blazing a trail for consumers to find the best deals.
This episode isn't just about the challenges of healthcare and medication costs; it's a celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit and the relentless pursuit of a more accessible healthcare model.
Contact: andy@scriptscouts.com
Link to Website: https://signup.scriptscouts.com/be-crazy-well
Music credit to Kalvin Love for the podcast’s theme song “Bee Your Best Self”
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Contact Suzi at suzigma@gmail.com or (818) 470-2013 and share your story.
suzilandolphi.com
vetsandplayers.org
wildhorserescue.org
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
Ever been blindsided by the staggering cost of a prescription? Andy Chan, the founder of ScriptScouts, joins Suzi to unravel the perplexing world of medication pricing and how his platform is blazing a trail for consumers to find the best deals.
This episode isn't just about the challenges of healthcare and medication costs; it's a celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit and the relentless pursuit of a more accessible healthcare model.
Contact: andy@scriptscouts.com
Link to Website: https://signup.scriptscouts.com/be-crazy-well
Music credit to Kalvin Love for the podcast’s theme song “Bee Your Best Self”
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Contact Suzi at suzigma@gmail.com or (818) 470-2013 and share your story.
suzilandolphi.com
vetsandplayers.org
wildhorserescue.org
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
I'm Susie Landolfi, and welcome to Be Crazy. Well, yeah, recording in progress, because you, mr Digital man, young person, who's set up this whole new app or whatever it is that you have, and me, an old person what's wrong with this picture? That I'm setting up the zoom and then it doesn't work. And you should have said hey, listen, susie, you know you're a little old, a lot old, and you're asking me, asking yourself, to set up the zoom room, and I'm the one that knows how to do all this digital shit.
Speaker 1:Hey look, you made it happen, so that's all that matters.
Speaker 2:That's all that matters, right? I just have to. Sometimes, what I forget to do is I want to keep beating back down the door instead of trying the knob, you know, step back and look at the door and go well, maybe I could use the knob, you know. And so, yeah, I learned to start over again. Speaking of which, andy, so have you, which is why we're on the call.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really appreciate you having me here.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate what you're doing and we're going to explain to everybody what you do in just a second. I just want to remind them that of course they're listening to or watching be crazy. Well, so, andy, that does know that if I invite you, you are crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I consider myself amongst the bunch, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:And this means that you're either close to being crazy well or you want to be crazy well and you want to join that movement. So I call it the mental health evolution.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'd love to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's what you did something very interesting and I read about it and then I've kind of done a little research and everything. So I would like you to tell everybody you were working and tell the story again of how you came up to where we are today and what it is. Absolutely Go ahead.
Speaker 1:You got it Okay. So I've been working in the tech industry for about 10 years and in February, as to no fault of my own, I got laid off because corporate objectives shifted and where I was working was no longer needed, and so I didn't take it personally. Work is work.
Speaker 2:That makes you well already. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:But what was difficult about that situation was I lost my health insurance, and when you lose your health insurance, some of the critical mental health medications that you need the price is just absolutely skyrocketed.
Speaker 1:It went to almost $2,000 a month, and so, obviously, when I showed up at the pharmacy, that was a huge surprise to me, as was to my wife, and we're like we got to do something better here. We got to figure out how we can afford our medications, and so, being the technologist that I am, I was resourceful. I went through Google and through a combination of manufacturers, coupons, coupon companies like GoodRx, as well as online pharmacies I was able to drive the price of my medications back down to $50 a month, and I thought to myself why isn't there a tool or why isn't there a piece of software that can automate this entire process and make medications accessible and affordable to everyone? And so, because I didn't find that solution, I started the company which is today called ScriptScouts, which automates the search and monitoring process for finding prescription medications, so that people like in my situation, or maybe those who are just, in general, having a hard time affording their medications, can find the best price, and continuously find the best price on those medications.
Speaker 2:So let me get this straight. You said why can't I get a vehicle to fly in the sky, Like we should be able to not just drive on the road, but let's just try to get some? So you take on something massive which is called the pharmaceutical companies and the drug stores. Let's just go after them and you decide to try to fix something that is massive and not wanting to be fixed by the people that make the drugs and sell the drugs. They don't want it fixed. Now I'm just calling them out here. They call it as I see it and then you call it ScriptScouts.
Speaker 2:Now, a scout in the indigenous world I grew up with a stepfather was Native American, Black and Italian. You can only imagine how much fun that was on all the foods that were there. And a scout is the best hunter, best explorer, physically fit and knows how to go into a new environment and see what's there and make a decision when they come back to the tribe to tell the tribe what's out there and is it a good idea to go into that land and is there food and water and how hard it is to get there, so that literally giving the entire tribe the information that they deserve to make a safe trip. That's happy, and us shall see. So you did that. For those of us that want to buy prescriptions at a season.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I just want. I don't even know that.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know you probably know about Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, but you may not have even understood the metaphor of the word scout you know, I love the context there and that's exactly what we're trying to do is we're trying to revolutionize a process that was highly manual in the past, if you could even get access to the information. So there are great companies out there today, like GoodRx, like SingleCare, like WellRx, who are trying to going out with the intention to help drive down prescription drug prices, and so, by partnering with those people and aggregating all those prices up, automating the entire search process, automating the monitoring process, you know, again, not only did people who can't afford their medications don't have the financial means to do it. Oftentimes it means you don't have the time. So what we're doing is we're giving you both time back as well as money back, so that you can get access to life saving medications.
Speaker 2:So, because you deserve to be able to make a living, because, remember, you weren't working before. Every entrepreneur, not every many go through when they make something like you have created something like you have. You worked for free, for yourself, you invested in yourself your time. And there is an idea that if you're going to save me time, I don't mind paying you for that. Like, if you're going to help me save money, I'm going to see how much it's going to cost me to have you save me time and money. So tell us how ScriptScout works.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah. So for $5 a month. We wanted to make it a very affordable and accessible price point. What you do is you enter your medication lists into our product and in the background we run our patent pending search algorithms across the web and we find you the best combinations of pharmacies to pick up your medications. So that's the initial experience. Now the ongoing experience for that $5 a month is that we continuously monitor drug prices on your behalf and then, the event that a better price is found, we notify you that. Hey, you know, maybe CVS had the best price when you last refilled, but tomorrow Walgreens is the best place. And, by the way, you save $15 by moving it to Walgreens. We contact you and say talk to your doctor and get your prescription transferred to Walgreens, because you can realize savings. Now what the really interesting part about this is, even despite the daily changes in the prescription drug market and as far as pricing is concerned, there can be up to a 90% variance in drug prices just from going pharmacy to pharmacy.
Speaker 2:A lot of people realize a little slower, so say that again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a lot of people don't realize that drug prices can vary 90% from pharmacy to pharmacy. So shopping is it should be a huge part of you being a healthcare consumer in the US healthcare market. And a lot of us don't do that, right? I personally didn't do that before I founded Scripps Scouts. It was just, hey, send it to the CVS that I've been going to for the past five, 10 years and the price is the price and I'm going to pay it. Well, we're trying to change that paradigm and make people smarter. Right, you drive past a gas station. You notice that the gas is a dollar a gallon cheaper. You're going to go to that gas station. Why wouldn't you treat your prescription medications the same way?
Speaker 2:Wow, because same for me Now a little different for me because I'm on Medicare, because I'm so old. So I already bought a prescription drug plan, right? So I know pretty much what it's going to be, if nothing, depending on my medication. And I want to bring up something that you said at first. You said for me to you'll find the best price at the pharmacy. So is this right now, only for those of us that actually go to a pharmacy now and pick up our drugs, or is this for people that are doing online and having it shipped?
Speaker 1:This is for both people. So, essentially, what we're doing is bottom line finding you the best price, whether that be at an online pharmacy, whether that be at a retail pharmacy. So one of the great companies that we currently partner with is Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs. I really think he's doing a great job revolutionizing the pharmaceutical industry, in the sense that his mantra is I will never charge you more than 15% of what the drug costs, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a manufacturing cost that you really just can't avoid. And then there's some overhead, right, because you have to do administrative things, you have to dispense the pills, you have to buy the bottles, etc. And then he charges you shipping on top of that. So he's pretty much breaking even on his business. But as a multi-millionaire billionaire he's trying to go out there. And again he shares a mission with us, which is make health care and prescription medications accessible and affordable to all.
Speaker 2:You're even saying that you're breaking the whole way of being in terms of how we are as companies, that you're going to actually work together, that you're not in competition, you're actually going to support one another, to change things and not just look at your bottom line.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. So what's really interesting about what's interesting, really interesting about it? What's interesting, really interesting about Mark Cuban and his company is, when I approached them, they were very transparent with me. They gave me an Excel file of all of their prescription drugs that they offer, the doses, the forms, the quantities and the prices. And he just said, andy, this is it. If someone can beat it, great. That's the whole point. Right? We're trying to put downward pressure on this drug market where prices are going crazy, and I want people to get access to this stuff. So I have no secrets. I'm willing to give you everything that I have and if I'm the best search result, great. If I'm not, then you help find people the best price.
Speaker 2:I'm just sort of sitting here trying to take all this in because, like I said, so not what we think, and it's so antithetical. Who was the young man that decided that an EpiPen to save your life should be a million dollars or something? I forget his name and he's in jail now anyway, so I don't care. But the point being is that it's the manufacturers, it's the distributors, it can be the pharmacies, and I mean I have no trouble with people making money. I really don't how they make it. I care about. I care about how they make it, I care about transparency, I care about ethics and I care about the idea that we can help one another and still make money. We don't people I have, like all these wonderful friends who are, you know, into the new wave and the new age, and it's like abundance. I go stop saying abundance. I don't need abundance, I just need enough. Abundance means that I get a garage full of shit that someone else deserves to have and need and I'm taking too much. So I don't do that.
Speaker 2:And so what I'm hearing now is you have a right to pay your rent, your mortgage. You have a right to make money. You have a right to get your medication. You have a right to have health insurance and you've come up with, through your ability to make a service, because it's a service that I can afford. That's going to save me money, and when you tell me that can be 90%, you could be saving me a lot of money. Give me examples of you don't have to mention the drugs if you don't want to. You can tell me what you've experienced with some of the people that are using your algorithm or using your app I guess it's called an app and what you've noticed and how much money you could possibly save. You have helped people save yourself included.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so, I'd say. A great example of it, related to the mental health space, is that we've had several folks who have Adderall prescriptions for ADHD and when they check out of the pharmacy they were paying on average between $100 and $150 for a 30-day supply of a 30 milligram inphetamine salts. Well, when we did our search results and we gathered coupons from across the web for them, the best coupon actually got them out the door at $30. So I mean, can you imagine if your kid were to have ADHD, or someone that you love or someone that you know could instantly save that money just by entering a coupon code at the computer? It's life-altering.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now even more personally, my father-in-law takes medications, for he has diabetes and he also suffers from heart disease. One of the medications he takes is called Jardians and other ones called Genaduetto. Combined, those two used to cost him about $3,000 a year. We got it down to $70 every time he picks up, which is a 90-day supply. So this is massive savings for people, your father-in-law.
Speaker 2:This is your father-in-law. This is my father-in-law.
Speaker 1:He likes you more than his daughter.
Speaker 2:He's so good at it now.
Speaker 1:You know he jokes that I owe him. That's right. He jokes that I owe him a dowry. I told him that you know that dowry is going to come in the form of me saving you money on your medications.
Speaker 2:I want to say something, too, about mental health medications, because it's so important.
Speaker 2:So one time we didn't have a lot of medication. Well, first of all, modern mental health was drilling holes in people's heads to let the demons out. That was the beginning of modern psychology. And we stopped doing that, thank God, because it's messy. And so then we kept working on ways of being and unfortunately and there's no slight to wonderful European white men, of which I know many adore it was closed off to people of color. It was closed off to us women. So everything that was tried and true was looked at a lens, through a very well-educated white male, usually European. So then a lot of what was done was from their lens and a lot of what they saw as a problem came from their perspective.
Speaker 2:So I, as a woman, because I have a uterus, called, you know, hence hysterectomy, right it's. If I'm hysterical, it's only because I have a uterus, not because, you know, I have an abusive husband or I'm gay or whatever it is. Oh, by the way, being gay was in the mental health diagnostic manual Up until 1973 is a mental health disorder? Oh, 1973. My daughter was born in 73. So I just want you to know that, as a young person, to know the background of mental health. I mean, there was lobotomies and all of this. So when we got into actually finding drugs that could help, medications that could help, the idea was that the idea was that the child was not going to be able to get a medical treatment. The idea was that they are supposed to help mitigate this is really important mitigate the intensity of the symptoms, because if we can decrease your depression and decrease your anxiety, there's a good possibility that then you can do the things that actually do heal, that do bring all of those symptoms down to I always say every symptoms like salsa. I mean I learned that because, you know, once I came to California, everybody was eating Mexican food and I realized you can buy mild, moderate and severe salsa and so everything's like salsa. So the symptom can be mild, moderate and severe and we go for mental health when it's severe, like when it's severe, when it's interfering in our lives.
Speaker 2:Let's take ADHD, and so the medication for that is to help you do the things that you deserve to do that those symptoms are getting in the way of. It's not for for cure, it's not a cure, because actually the way to cure some ADHD is breath work, slowing down, practicing when you're on the Adderall to take the smallest amount you can that helps you focus, and then lowering all the things in your life that are causing you to believe that if you don't do enough and you don't do it right, you're going to fail. That's childhood trauma. That's childhood trauma and it can be, you know, environmental and familiar, and it can be historical all of that. So I want to say that what's important about what you're doing is if we could not only help people get their medication and let them know that these medications are here to help you do the work that can literally change your brain, like literally help you create a life, so you don't need them anymore Because ultimately, that's the cheapest thing that can happen.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Your drug costs. Get off the drugs right. So I'm a real advocate and I think what happens is we're such a medication country that if I can take a pill for something or I have to work for 12 weeks and learn something, take a pill, work for 12 weeks, I'm obviously going to take the pill and I will think that it's going to cure me. Well, now I'm stuck on that pill for a long time until I do the 12 weeks of practice. So I wanted to share that because I think sometimes we as mental health practitioners deserve to tell everybody why we gave out so much medication, like what was that all about? And once doctors were allowed to prescribe it and do no follow up.
Speaker 2:That's where I want to say whoa, what if we'll add another whole thing onto your program, whereas if I get my Adderall I could get a little. Hey, did you know? Did you know that if you do breath work and you do meditation, that especially breath work, you'll stop the flow of adrenaline? Adderall, adhd, adrenaline is the strongest drug that we're trying to mitigate with Adderall. So I just wanted to share that with you, that I got excited about the fact that if we have a mental health evolution, we could help people get the medication and then use it in a way that will help them and benefit them for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I would say that everyone at Scripps Scouts the entire marketing team, the technology team, everyone we work with also definitely believes that healing is a holistic practice. Medication is a part of it, but you do need to take care of yourself, learn to love yourself, give yourself the space to develop and to forgive. Most importantly oh my God One of the initiatives that we like to get off the ground in the next six months is actually called the Scripps Scouts Foundation.
Speaker 1:We want to open up a nonprofit segment of our company Does really two things. The first is raising funds from donors so that we can give grants to folks so that they can afford their medications. If people are running into hard times or they lost insurance or whatever the case may be, they'd be issued a Scripps Scouts card and a free license to Scripps Scouts so they can go off and afford the medications that they need to find. But, suzie, to your point, another big part of what we want to do with that foundation is to give people access to the resources. To say, medication may be a good foundation for you in the healing process, but here are other things that you should definitely think about in conjunction with your medication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so clear that we can do that and that people deserve it. I always say you deserve it. I think what happens is people get so afraid once they're on medication. It is helping that they're afraid to give it up, because at least they've got some semblance of stability, some semblance, semblance of competence in what it is that they want to do, whatever it is, whether it's getting out of bed from depression, whether it's slowing down, being able to focus on something like anything. And what I think is the perfect combination I'm sure Mr Cuban would agree with this is the medication and the wellness practices to have somebody that would keep saying let's do this together.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you a funny story. So childhood trauma it was. Kaiser Permanente did a survey of 15,000 patients 50 years and older and they wanted to find out if adverse childhood experiences actually caused what we would call autoimmune or aging issues. And so they did this questionnaire and they found out that people of 50 and older have the worst health of heart and diabetes and multiple sclerosis I mean everything that's an autoimmune issue if they had the worst childhood. I mean there was a definite correlation, like they could not deny that, that buildup, and you think 50 years ago with the start of my trauma. But actually that internal trauma and the effects of that internal trauma actually kept moving through me to the point where I got high blood pressure, and so I'm on high blood pressure medication. Well, so was the doctor that gave it to me. In fact, we're on the same medication at the same dose, and here's what I heard every month how come your blood pressure is going down and mine's not? We're on the same medication. This is all heart doctor saying this to me and I'm sitting on that. You know the thing. We lay back on where that thing is. He's sitting down in the chair and I'm looking at him like he's got two heads thinking how do you ask me that?
Speaker 2:As a doctor, I was very nice. I just didn't say, dude, like what are you asking? I said because you're not doing the things I'm doing with the medication. Did you go to yoga this week? Do you do breath work? Do you sit and help yourself, calm your thoughts and your feelings? And did you run this week? Did you have fun? Did you do art Like you didn't do all those things, didn't go to your therapist, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:So you didn't do those things that actually are helping, and even what I eat, like I'm. That's the holistic approach. I'm taking my medication and I'm doing all those other things, so something like script scouts is this idea, that foundation, which I just love. The idea is we can help you with all of it. This is what true healing and medical care and clinical care should look like. And I always you know I used to joke with them all the time and say you know, doc, you can tell me to go home, and you know, stop smoking, quit drinking and lose 100 pounds, and I can go home and I can smoke a carton of cigarettes, drink a gallon of wine and eat a whole cheesecake myself Somehow.
Speaker 2:That's okay if I'm a doctor. So they're not. They're not trained to do that. You know they're trained to help and, trust me, if my arm falls off, I want a doctor to sew it back on. I don't want the gardener to do it, although maybe they're good at that. So I just wanted to say that what I'm excited about, why I wanted to talk to you, was this idea of not just pushing more drugs, not just saying drugs, the fact that you're thinking about this whole list of view of yes, of course, have your drugs, have your medications that can help you, and that's why I always say yeah and I don't say but unless I'm talking about someone's ass and over here we have breath work and all of these other things that will actually make that medication more successful. If you're willing to do it, it will make it more successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's our whole goal here is just holistic wellness and making it accessible, and whatever we can do to play a role in changing the US healthcare system. That's where we want to be.
Speaker 2:Now we need a food scout. We can go buy the best apples at the better price. You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean Nutri-Skout. I love it, so that's the idea.
Speaker 2:Nutri-Skout, like we need like hey, by the way, over this you know like whole foods over here is actually having to say, oh, not that they ever do, but here they are. You can actually get that. And I think that all of us, with this wonderful thing called the internet, which I'm a huge fan of because I'm from the age where you had to get an encyclopedia, you had to buy and by the time you paid it off, all the information was wrong. So I grew up, you know, like, oh shit, I just read that encyclopedia, it's not wrong. So I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 2:And this idea that we can access things that make our life better physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and financially that's the five areas of life that we all deserve to pay attention to and get better. And financial means all your resources. It means don't let the water run down the sink, because that's money going down the sink, but that's also water and we can't live without it. So what's been the biggest struggle for you and what's been the greatest win for you with this? So, first of all, what's the struggle? How do we help, Like what's going on now with ScriptScouts? And then, what's your greatest win?
Speaker 1:You know I'll start with the positive. The greatest win for me has been We've raised a little bit of money as a business not a lot, but to be able to hire such a phenomenal technology and marketing team on such a slim budget was really reassuring to me that what we're doing is mission-driven and it's going to change people's lives. People have literally quit their jobs and worked almost for free for me so they can make this vision a reality. I cannot be more thankful to them, but I also, at the same time, could not be more excited that there are people that are willing to join me on this journey. I'm a really big shout out to Sean Cannon, who's my CTO, for essentially dropping everything and building an amazing engineering team around him. I'm with Miguel Jonah, cole Tanner, liz Ali Cassenia just great people to be around on a daily basis. Again, I couldn't be more thankful.
Speaker 2:They're all over the country, right they're everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have folks in upstate New York on the border of Canada, we have folks on the tip of the Panhandle in Florida, folks out in the desert in Arizona. They all are working together day in, day out to make this happen and make this vision a reality. It's one of the most exciting parts of entrepreneurship is when you can make a difference and, at the same time, build a great team around you.
Speaker 2:I agree. What's the greatest struggles to?
Speaker 1:As a business, you got to make money, like you were talking about earlier. The biggest struggle for us has been getting users onto our platform, though we are definitely about to have some big marketing pushes, and we're very thankful that you gave us an opportunity today to talk through our business and let people know what we're about. At the same time, I think it's just about getting the message out. It is a struggle for now, but I think once people understand what we do and the value that we can bring to them, and that also that we're not in it for the money, I've had potential investors and people tell me hey, andy, if you're saving them so much money, why aren't you charging 10, 15, 20, $50 a month? I said, yeah, I could, but is that morally? Is that the right thing to do? The more I charge for this thing, the less people will be able to access it.
Speaker 2:The less people really deserve to access it because they don't have a lot of money For other people. Oh, $20 is nothing. He may save me some money, enough, but I'll just sign up. It's $20. What's $20? I spend that at Starbucks every day With the people that really deserve this. You're self-included when you needed this. You're a father-in-law. That $5, I can sit there and go. Okay, I can risk the $5. If it brings me back $30, $50, $100 this month, that's a great investment. I don't know any other way that.
Speaker 2:I can do that on a very limited budget. That's absolutely imperative that you're doing it. I love that you didn't say it was $4.99. I hate when people do that Just say $5.
Speaker 1:We try to make it easy. You can say $5.
Speaker 2:I'm so silly I'm going to go oh my God, that's amazing. I'm going to save a penny because it's not $5. This idea, too, that all the things that I do spend $5 on a week that I really don't use, or it broke, or it's not good for me usually it's not good for me that's another whole issue as well. That, don't it. I don't have, you know this, but copy and adonis, it's over $5 now, right there, that would be helpful. I appreciate that. One of my things in life, andy, is I would rather have a little bit of something great than a lot of something shitty. This idea that for $5, I'm getting something great, as opposed to spending a lot of money and maybe getting something shitty, that's really not helping. I really appreciate that. Walk me through how I can sign up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. There's a link that I provided you, suzy, for anyone who's interested. When they click that link, it's a really simple sign up process. You'll see a picture of you promoting the podcast and all you have to do is enter your email. Then you enter your medication list, put a credit card in and you're done.
Speaker 1:After we get your medication list, within 24 hours we'll send you what we call the ScriptScouts cover letter, which is going to contain information on, if you were to pick up your medication at a retail pharmacy, which retail pharmacy is the best one to pick it up and which coupon codes do you need to use and what the estimated price will be. It will also contain information on online pharmacies so that you can make a decision on your own as to which one is more economical or more convenient for you. Then at that point it's kind of hands off. It runs in the background. Every two weeks, or every four weeks or 90 days, depending on how frequently you need your medications refilled, we send you that cover letter again and again and again. It's either going to say, nope, no change in the pharmacy, you're good to go and pick it up at CVS or wherever you got it last time or time to call your doctor transfer to this place. We think we can save you an extra 10, 15, 20 bucks if you do so.
Speaker 2:If I need a new prescription if it's run out. I've listed them. Do you need a copy of my prescription? Do I have to upload that?
Speaker 1:No, you do not. All you have to do is just enter the name of the medication. All of the electronic records and the prescriptions should be sent directly from your doctor to the pharmacy. We don't ever touch your prescription information. That's for HIPAA compliance reasons. We're a huge, we're hugely against selling user data for profit. We think that your medical information should be private and should stick to you. So really, the only association we make on our database and our application is between an email which can be you know, it's pretty relatively anonymous and a medication list, and all of the data is encrypted. It's logically separated. So if we were to ever get hacked, all people would see is a bunch of gobbledygook and an email. So we take this cybersecurity thing also very seriously as well.
Speaker 2:Most of my information is gobbledygook. Anyway, like it. I always do it and say you hack me as much as you want. Everything about me is on the internet. It's on some bathroom walls in Los Angeles, even so. Don't worry about that. You do not worry about that whatsoever. Well, this has been great. If you don't click on the link of my podcast, so say I. Somebody told me about you. Is there a Scripps scoutscom or something like that where they can go to and sign up?
Speaker 1:Yep, that's exactly it. If you go to Scripps scoutscom, you'll be able to go into the subscribe section of the website and you can get started there. And you know my email is andy at Scripps scoutscom. I am happy to answer any questions or reach out personally to anyone who may be interested in the service. Anyone who's interested in the Scripps Scouts Foundation and wants to be a part of that story, definitely reach out. If you'd like to join Scripps Scouts and join the cause and making medications affordable for everybody, I'm here, happy to have that conversation as well. If you're looking to just make a friend, I'm here.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, you're so nice and your wife's going. Oh my God, what did he just say? Gonna, have people over for dinner that we don't know. That's great. I can't think of much else that I need to ask you about. I'm really excited. I was telling the producer, cindy Thompson, because we're part of Coming Home Well, which is a. Now we have a radio station, never mind just the podcasts.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic.
Speaker 2:I gotta find out if this guy's for real. I talked to him once before and I gotta know, like, if this is for real, this guy has got the principles that I so believe in and so want to be associated with in my own personal life first and with other people. And, andy, it's been a real pleasure to hear what you're doing and to know that there are entrepreneurs with principles. There's entrepreneurs with principles. I'll tell you one quick story, and I don't know if you'll look me up, but there's a. I opened up a store which I'd never done before in my life, and it was during the AIDS crisis. I opened up the first condom store oh wow, condomania. So 200 square feet in New York City, with a young man named Adam Glickman, and we both put in $15,000 cash from loans on our Jeep Wranglers. For some reason we were business partners, we both had the same Jeep Wrangler, so we had $30,000 cash. This is in 1991. And we were $70,000 in debt when we opened the doors 400 square feet, selling a dollar product. We've got them in from all over the world. So here's the story.
Speaker 2:The story was it was life and death, much like these medications are, and we wanted people to have the access to the very best safety feature. We wanted them to know how to use it. It was not a sex shop. You could bring your teenagers in and we could explain and educate. We had some fun products too, but nothing that was.
Speaker 2:We had boob pasta and penis pasta and as a half Italian I really appreciated it and some t-shirts, but other than that they were just condoms from all over the world and, like you said, we were able to have people afford to get what worked, be able to know how to use it correctly so that they could keep themselves safe. We made $1,500 the first hour we were open and we were able to pay back the $70,000 in debt that we had, and we knew someday we were gonna go online. We knew that the store would close because the pharmacies, by the way, would not bring the best condoms. The Japanese make the best condoms, so they weren't allowing them in their stores. That was the other problem that the American made. Condoms at the time were terrible quality.
Speaker 2:And also wouldn't market in the gay community or the black community. So basically, what the condom companies were saying is is that only white people deserve to protect themselves. So we saw that as racism and homophobia and we just went at it and we opened up several of the stores and eventually we closed them because we didn't need to once the internet got so available that they could buy all of these online even easier and quicker. But I'll tell you, I remember those days. I'm grateful I did it. I'm looking at you right now going yep, that's what we did, like this young whipper snapper now is going out there and he's going up against the big pharmaceutical companies and the big pharmacists. And I want you to know they had to change and they did.
Speaker 2:At one time, to buy a condom, you had a point behind. The pharmacist said I'll take that extra, extra large one back there Cause this. I'll take the small one cause it'll fit better. And so we changed. We changed how they were marketed and how they were presented in the ones that you could that the pharmacies would put in the stores. So I want you to know it's possible. It's really possible.
Speaker 1:We hope to follow in your footsteps and your success and we certainly appreciate you having us on this podcast. It's a tremendous opportunity for us and we are quite honored to be to be crazy well.
Speaker 2:Yes, we do. You're part of the crazy well family now, so you're definitely crazy well, so you don't have to be it, you're already it. So in the, when we post this and then it will live on the coming home well website so people can always do it. We'll replay it. I promise you we'll do that and we will make sure that people have all the information that we write up about you. That's why I asked for your bio and you gave me the link. So that means when we even posted on Instagram and all the other places that we post them, that information will be there with them as well.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Yeah, If you just let me know what the date of that is. We're super excited to see what kind of buzz this generates.
Speaker 2:Great, and you can put this on your website.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to do that, so you can literally put a link. So most people know that I'm the mental health coach for Jake Paul he's the one that outed me, so it is fine and several other influences so I just know of, and he's such an advocate of, mental health so I'm gonna let him know about you as well that when people are doing good, then we should do good for them as well.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome. All right, go to Andy. He will be your best friend, he just said, and you can have a barbecue at his house. So I hear that's what he offered. And, andy, thank you so much. And again, we'll stay in touch and I'm gonna sign up and what I'll be able to do is during the course of each week when I do my podcast. I let people know. Oh, I went on and guess what? I just got a notice from Script Scouts that my amelotapine is now cheaper and I keep on getting here.
Speaker 2:So I'll let them follow my wonderful journey with saving myself money, and then I can go take that money that I saved and buy more donuts.
Speaker 1:Cause, that's what.
Speaker 2:I like. That's what I like.
Speaker 1:There's a good for the mind and then there's good for the soul. I think that's good for the soul.
Speaker 2:Bless you. I'd rather be happy eating a donut than miserable just eating celery and thinking that's gonna help me right, although I do like celery. But yeah, if you're stressed trying to be healthy, that's the worst thing you can do to try to be healthy. So, every once in a while, have a donut and enjoy it. Love it, jan from Script Scouts Okay, I'm so grateful and Be Crazy. Well, and our theme song, by the way, is by Calvin Love and it's called Be your Best Self. And, andy, you're already doing it.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:You're welcome, take care. Bye everybody, be Crazy. Well, I'll see you next time.