An Introduction to Medication Matchmaking

At True Rx Health Strategists, Health Care Is Evolving.

Providers and health care systems are rising up to the need to provide personalized patient care. Each patient has individualized needs and unique factors leading to improved health and well being.

You also have unique factors that can guide your provider to selecting medications that will work best for you. Unfortunately, this is often untapped information and providers are left guessing at which medications will work best for you. If they do not know your individual needs and guess wrong, it can lead to ineffective treatment or extra side effects.

Pharmacogenomics, sometimes just called genomics or PGx, is the study of how your body processes many different medications.

We all have differences in our genetic make up that can easily be seen. For example, if you look around, you may see people with different eye color, or height, or hair texture. We also have differences in how we process several medications.

Some people process medications too quickly so that medication may not be beneficial. Others might process medications too slowly leading to worsened side effects. Many medications are sensitive to pharmacogenomics including several mental health, heart health, and pain management medications. Imagine what it would be like to remove the guess work of picking an anti-depressant or take heart health for example. Many times we take medications to prevent damage to our heart even if we do not feel the damage happening.

Historically, pharmacogenomic testing was just not practical.

That is why True Rx designed our pharmacogenomics program to break down barriers to enable your provider to find the right medication for you. And because finding medication to keep you healthy is so important, your employer is removing any financial barrier by making this service available to you at no cost.

The process is simple.

If you are prescribed a medication that is sensitive to pharmacogenomics, a test kit will be mailed to you. The cheek swab is easy to perform, but instructions will be included as well. Next, drop the kit in the nearest mailbox. Once the lab has processed your results, you will receive access to a secure, online portal where you can view your results and even search medications to see how you would process them. A True Rx clinical pharmacist will also view your results and, if needed, make a recommendation to your provider. You will also have access to the clinical pharmacist to discuss these results and any medication recommendations. Each True Rx clinical pharmacist is certified in pharmacogenomics by the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.

Pharmacogenomics is an exciting way to optimize your medications and keep you healthy.

But there are some questions you may be asking yourself such as:

• What exactly is being tested with a True Rx pharmacogenomics kit?
• Will my genetic information be kept securely?
• Is pharmacogenomics testing right for me?
• Really? No Cost?

Let's answer your questions.

The pharmacogenomics test is designed for, well, pharmacogenomics. The goal is to examine the genes that are responsible for how we process medications. This means we are only testing about 20 genes out of the approximately 30,000 genes in the human genome. Information about your risk for cancer or where your ancestors came from is not gathered in this test.

Additionally, your results are considered medical information and as such are subject to strict privacy standards.

Pharmacogenomics is not needed for everyone. Not all people take medications and not all medications are sensitive to pharmacogenomics. However, if you are on medications that are clinically impacted by these genetic variations, True Rx will reach out to you because you are at risk of a drug gene interaction.

And yes, when I say at no cost to you, that is what I meant. Your employer believes this is so important that they have removed any financial barrier to testing.

Are you ready to unlock the door to personalized medications?