Shop Alto Essentials to add pharmacy products to any delivery!

Your partner in navigating the ins and outs of prescriptions — at no extra cost.

Alto Pharmacy Technician

Alto Pharmacist

It’s official: Alto Pharmacy is a great place to work! We’re honored to join the community of Great Place to Work-Certified™ companies based on team member feedback and a rigorous assessment of our company’s culture and benefits.

Join us in delivering our industry-leading pharmacy care to millions of people across the country. As a member of the team, you’ll play an integral role in improving our customers’ quality of life and redefining what’s possible in pharmacy. 

Be Part of a Great Place to Work — Join Our Team

Hear first-hand from members of the Alto technology teams.

Read the latest Alto blog posts covering healthcare, family health, managing diseases, and other Alto highlights.

Blog | Alto Pharmacy

Last year, we built a feature to show patients all of their medication pricing options, including when paying cash might be cheaper. Here are two surprising trends we've discovered since.

Two Engineers Crunch the Numbers: When Is It Cheaper to Pay Cash for Your Medication?

Tom Cahill and Ashley Qian, Sr. Software Engineers

In 2019, we launched a streamlined flow in our patient app to handle a surprising scenario: when the out-of-pocket price for a medication is less than the insurance copay.

Since launching our price selection feature last year, we've saved thousands of patients money by bringing this disparity to their attention. On average, patients save 30% off their total copay when their out-of-pocket price for a medication is cheaper than the insurance copay. The average savings per prescription is $23.30. 

While several factors impact how drug pricing works, here are two trends we’ve seen in the data so far.

These Two Therapeutic Classes Are Most Likely to Be Cheaper Out of Pocket

A therapeutic class is a method of categorization that groups medications based on the conditions that they are intended to treat. Here's what we found when we aggregated prescriptions by therapeutic class:

Across the 394,367 prescriptions we examined, roughly 0.5% had lower out-of-pocket costs. Comparing different therapeutic classes, anti-parasitic drugs (example: permethrin) appear most likely to have a cheaper out-of-pocket price by a fairly wide margin at 2.94% of cases. Cardiac/cardiovascular drugs (example: rosuvastatin calcium aka Crestor) and blood medications (example: tranexamic acid) stand out as well with over 1% of cases.

Looking at the results in terms of median percentage savings, a few classes stand out as having a fairly high disparity between prices: anti-histamines, contraceptives, anti-neoplastics and anti-infectives. 

Brand Medications Are Less Likely to Be Cheaper Out of Pocket

You're up on Family Feud, and Steve Harvey asks you to name some differences between brand-name and generic medications. The first thing that probably comes to mind is cost: In general, one expects generic medications to be cheaper than their brand-name alternatives. We might expect brand name medications to incur higher copays and thus a larger opportunity for Alto to provide savings. However, we see a surprising trend in our data:

In fact, only .01% of brand name medications we've delivered since shipping this feature had lower out-of-pocket prices (compared to .6% for generics).

So what gives? The cash price we’re able to offer for a medication is mostly determined by the cost we paid a wholesaler or manufacturer to buy it. The copay set by insurance plans, however, is often impacted by behind-the-scenes negotiations between the drug manufacturer and the pharmacy benefit manager, or PBM. As a result, the cash price isn't always strongly correlated with the insurance copay:

Among a set of equivalent products, the one with the cheapest cash price might not be the one with the lowest insurance copay, and that difference can be significant enough to make it worthwhile to forego using insurance.

As engineers who are tasked from time to time with investigating issues with our billing system, we've experienced our fair share of bewilderment at the surprising outcomes we sometimes see. The complexity of pricing is why we've invested so heavily in making sure both our internal tools and patient-facing applications present users with the information they need to understand their options and make well-informed decisions.

We have countless opportunities to help our patients achieve better health outcomes, save money, and be more informed about their choices when it comes to their medication. There’s a lot of exciting work to do, and if this sounds interesting to you, please reach out to us on LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!

At Alto, we believe your medications should come to you—at the best price, on time, and with the ongoing support you need.

How Alto Delivers More, at No Additional Cost

At Alto, we believe your medications should come to you—at the best price, on time, and with the ongoing support you need. However, when we explain to people that we can save them money while providing free home delivery and easy access to expert care, we often encounter disbelief. In a world where we usually pay a premium for special care, how can Alto’s services really be free?

Traditional retail pharmacies often build hundreds of storefronts in a single metro area in an effort to lure customers through proximity. We, however, are taking a totally different approach. We’ve redesigned the pharmacy experience by building a single distribution center in each metro area. By reducing our overhead costs, we’re able to hire teams of patient care pharmacists who are always on-call to offer guidance and local couriers who will deliver your medications straight to your doorstep.  

What’s more, because we’re not using our resources to stock and equip a fleet of locations, we can invest in innovations that elevate your prescription experience. We built our own pharmacy software platform that enables our pharmacists and patient advocates to effortlessly perform price investigations and coordinate between doctors and insurance companies. We also developed the Alto app, which puts pharmacy care at your fingertips—from ordering refills to chatting with a pharmacist. 

In a traditional pharmacy setting, pharmacists are often required to fill prescriptions, work the register, answer phones, counsel patients, administer flu shots, and call doctors and insurance companies—all on a strictly timed schedule. We don’t believe that sets pharmacists up to provide the best care. At Alto, pharmacists work in two teams with close collaboration. Our production pharmacists can focus on the important task of medication preparation while our patient care pharmacists get to focus on you. Whether you’re concerned about a side effect or wondering if you should take your medication with a meal, you can talk through any issue with an expert who cares. 

By bringing our pharmacy to you, we’re able to offer you a better experience at no additional cost. From uninterrupted, one-on-one consultations with pharmacists to timely hand-delivery of your medications, we think “above and beyond” is simply what you should expect from your pharmacy. 

Need a Refresher? These Alto Benefits are Completely Free

Have you ever meticulously crafted an online dinner order only to cancel once you saw how all the delivery and service fees added up? We’re never going to put you through that type of frustration. When we say “free delivery,” we mean absolutely, completely, 100% free. There won’t be any additional fees sneaking up on you. Ever.

Send us your prescription and a member of our team will hand-deliver your medication directly to your home or office. Pick a date and delivery window that works for you—most medications are available the very same day—then track your courier as they make their way to your doorstep. 

Opportunities to save money are out there, but they can be confusing to identify. When we set out to revolutionize the pharmacy experience, we knew that we needed to help make these resources more accessible. So, we created our own database of discounts, coupons, and pricing options that we could match against every single prescription. By automating the process, we’re able to exhaust all the options and find you the lowest price—at no extra cost. 

If you currently have a prescription at another pharmacy, we’ll take care of the transfer for you. It’s the least we can do to welcome you into our care. For more on how the free transfer process works (spoiler: it’s incredibly easy), see How Do I Transfer a Prescription to Alto?

One of the most important aspects of pharmacy care is the ability to chat with a pharmacist whenever questions come up. Whether you’re starting a new medication for the first time or unsure if a certain supplement could interfere with your regimen, you can call or message an Alto pharmacist at any time—even evenings and weekends. You’ll never have to wait in line or feel like you’re being rushed along, and your messages will be private and secure. Our patient care pharmacists focus solely on consultations, which means you’ll always have their undivided attention. 

Whether you’re facing a full day of meetings, navigating a complex schedule of pickups and errands, or dealing with an unexpected challenge, it’s easy to let your daily dose fall through the cracks. So we created a few helpful features within the Alto app that can help you stick to your schedule. The Reminders feature lets you set up medication alerts so you’ll never miss your next dose, and you can turn on Auto Refills to get your future refills delivered automatically. We’ll even reach out to remind you when your next fill is on its way so you can make updates to the delivery if needed.

Streamlined Medications for You and Your Family

Imagine if everything you needed to know about your and your family’s prescriptions was all in one place? We thought that would be pretty great too. With the Alto app, you can set up a family account to see and manage medications for your whole family from a single account. View all your current and past prescriptions, along with detailed medication information, and even coordinate your medications into one delivery. 

We set out to make the traditional pharmacy experience better by bringing the medications you need—along with exceptional care—straight to your doorstep. Some might find it unbelievable that we offer our services for free; we simply believe that we’re providing pharmacy care as it should be. 

Experience a better pharmacy. Our team is available to answer your questions from 9 am – 12 midnight ET Monday – Friday, and 10 am – 9 pm ET on weekends; reach out via phone at 1-800-874-5881, or download the app to securely message with a pharmacist.

There is quite a bit that sets Alto apart from other pharmacies. Let’s take an in-depth look at how Alto was built to be a better pharmacy in all aspects of care. 

Traditional vs. Online Pharmacies: How Alto Built Something Better

Is there anything we can’t buy online these days? Over the past decade, e-commerce has surged, as promises of convenience and low prices have lured shoppers away from brick and mortar stores. Yet even with almost 8 out of 10 Americans shopping online, there’s a pervasive sense of nostalgia for “the way things were.” We love the convenience of clicking “buy” from the comfort of home, but we often lament the loss of human touch in our transactions.

It’s probably not surprising that prescription medications have followed the same trend. Most of us are eager to avoid the lines at traditional retail pharmacies. A quick search will turn up scores of online pharmacies, all boasting low prices and convenient mail-delivery. You might think Alto is one of this bunch, however, there is quite a bit that sets us apart. Let’s take an in-depth look at how Alto was built to be a better pharmacy in all aspects of care. 

A major factor driving people to their local pharmacies is the chance for a face-to-face interaction with a pharmacist they can trust. Traditional retail pharmacies generally have established reputations and physical locations that help make customers feel secure. However, retail pharmacists are often distracted by the laundry list of tasks they’re expected to complete each day. You may have to wait in line, potentially when you’re feeling unwell, only to receive just a minute or two of face time. 

Online pharmacies, on the other hand, can spring up overnight—and disappear just as fast. Unfortunately, there are many illegitimate internet-based pharmacies that may be selling counterfeit or unsafe drugs. In fact, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) labeled about 95% of the online pharmacies they reviewed as “not recommended.” The FDA provides this list of safety checks and warning signs when considering an online pharmacy. Even with legitimate online pharmacies, it may not be easy, or even possible, to talk with a real pharmacist when you have questions about your medication. 

At Alto, your care is our priority. Just ask our happy customers. Not only are we fully accredited by the NABP, but we also have fulfillment centers in every area we serve, staffed by our incredible local teams. These neighborhood pharmacies are where we process and fill your prescription orders, then hand-deliver them directly to your doorstep. We have expert pharmacists in all areas of specialty care who are available to talk through questions as they come up, for as long as you need. It’s easy to get in touch—send a quick message through our in-app messenger or give us a call. 

With the cost of prescription medications on a seemingly endless upward trend, more and more Americans are looking for ways to save money. Many people may not realize that the cost of their medication can vary from pharmacy to pharmacy, though they’re unlikely to spend hours driving between locations to find the best price. For that reason, traditional retail pharmacies have little incentive to seek ways to lower your costs. After waiting in line to pick up your medications, there’s little choice but to accept the price you’ve been given or leave empty handed. 

Online pharmacies make it easy to compare prices and often seem to offer better deals on the surface. You should be wary of pricing that seems “too good to be true,” however, and make sure you are visiting a reputable source. Counterfeit medications pose a significant risk to your health, so make purchases with discernment. 

At Alto, not only are we the real deal, but we’re committed to finding you the best price. We match every single prescription against our extensive database of savings options. Plus, our services and delivery are always completely free. For a closer look at how we find the lowest prices, read our article, “How Alto Saves You Money on Prescriptions.” We’ve saved our patients more than $36 million on their medications so far.

Some people stick to their local retail pharmacy because they need or prefer to pick up their medication the same day. Others continue making the trip simply because it’s the way they’ve always handled their prescriptions. Switching pharmacies might seem like a hassle, but what about having to drive to the pharmacy and wait in line every time you need your medication? 

Online pharmacies exist to eliminate the inconvenience of picking up your prescriptions. No more rushing to the pharmacy during business hours, standing in long lines, or driving back and forth for multiple prescriptions. However, online pharmacies send your medications through the mail, so you won’t receive them right away. And when questions about your prescription arise, you may find yourself stuck on hold or resorting to an internet deep dive. 

With Alto, your days of waiting in line are over but you won’t miss out on real, human care. We’ll take care of transferring your prescriptions for you, then one of our local couriers will hand-deliver your medications at a time and location that’s convenient for you—even that very same day. Our expert pharmacists are always on-call to answer any questions or provide guidance. With the Alto app, you can manage your and your family’s prescriptions, chat with a pharmacist, and coordinate refills, all in one place. 

Some retail pharmacies offer delivery options, however, they usually require a paid membership or the use of an outside delivery service. With prescription medication already a significant expense for many people, stacking on additional fees isn’t a very attractive prospect. 

Online pharmacies use mail delivery, so it can be difficult to determine exactly when your medications will arrive. If you’re running low or are on a timed regimen, the possibility of mail-based delays can present a significant challenge and become a potential health risk. 

When you fill a prescription with Alto, a member of our local team will hand-deliver it to you that very same day—for free. No more worrying about mail delays or wondering when your medication will arrive. Simply select a delivery window and a location and we’ll make sure your care package arrives safely, securely, and on time. You can even track your delivery as it makes its way to you. And did we mention that our delivery service is always completely free? 

As you can see, Alto is just like your neighborhood pharmacy. We just happen to believe that your medication should come to you. We’re committed to providing you with exceptional care—from free, same-day delivery to exhaustive price investigations to always-there support from our dedicated pharmacists and care team. When it comes to your prescriptions, you don’t have to sacrifice trust, price, convenience, or delivery. We’ll give you the very best experience in every area of care. 

Ready to switch to a better pharmacy? Our team is available to answer your questions from 9 am – 12 midnight ET Monday – Friday, and 10 am – 9 pm ET on weekends; reach out by in-app secure messaging or phone.

Starting Monday, November 2, fertility patients in New York City can have their medications delivered straight to their door by our Alto team.

Hello, New York

Alto’s launch in the New York market extends our industry-leading patient care model to the East Coast.

Our daily delivery windows allow patients to more easily plan to be available to receive their medications. Patients schedule deliveries to the location of their choice — home, work or hotel — and on the day of their choosing. They can even track our couriers in real time on our mobile app and text with a pharmacist for support.

Courier delivery windows
Monday - Friday 

6:00 –9:00 pm ET in all areas west of Patchogue (7:00 – 10:00 pm ET in areas east of Patchogue)

2:00 –5:00 pm ET in all areas west of Patchogue (3:00 – 6:00 pm ET in areas east of Patchogue)

Compounds must be prescribed and confirmed with the patient by 1:30 pm ET, Monday – Friday, for same-day delivery. At this time, compounds are not available for same-day delivery on Saturday and Sunday.

Walk-in hours
Monday - Friday: 9 am – 7 pm ET
Saturday - Sunday: 8 am - 4:30 pm ET 

Fertility patients interested in using Alto’s services for their medication needs can ask their care team to send all prescriptions to Alto Pharmacy (via ePrescribe or phone).

Fertility is Complicated. Your Medications Don’t Have to Be.

Alto knows fertility pharmacy. With more than 100,000 patients served, we understand the treatment complexities and concerns of fertility patients. Our dedicated patient care team is available in the evenings and on weekends to walk you through your first injection or answer questions about medication storage, dosing or interactions. Our fertility deliveries include all necessary ancillary supplies, such as syringes, sharps container and alcohol swabs, and are carefully packaged for temperature control. 

Alto will automatically connect you with all manufacturer-sponsored financial assistance programs for qualifying prescriptions. Alto also works with many fertility benefits programs and many leading financing and loan providers. If we cannot bill your insurance, we’ll find you a pharmacy that can.

 Our customer service team is available to support NY patients and providers from 9 am - Midnight ET, Monday - Friday, and 10 am - 9 pm ET, Saturday - Sunday. 

At this time, Alto is only offering fertility medication services in the New York City market. Any updates to service areas and offerings will be available at alto.com/locations.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for accuracy and completeness.

At Alto, we value effective communication across all teams. In our latest blog post software engineer Eric Leite shares how he set out to make it easier to understand how our repositories change over time while minimizing disruption to engineers’ existing workflows.

How (and Why) We’re Standardizing our Commit Messages

Have you ever tried to debug a production issue by looking at your commit history, only to find a bunch of commits that don’t seem to be connected to any specific feature? Or maybe you've pulled the latest version of a dependency and noticed a bug that wasn’t there before?

It’s hard to pinpoint where a problem might have begun if your project (or its dependencies) don’t rely on standards to commit and release code. This was a problem I set out to tackle in my organization: How can we make it easier to understand how our repositories change over time while minimizing disruption to engineers’ existing workflows?

At Alto, we value effective communication. We keep our pharmacists and operations team in the loop about every new feature we release to production on a daily basis. We also announce changes to our codebase in a dedicated Slack channel to keep our engineers informed. But that raises the question: How do we ensure that someone doesn’t forget to make an announcement? And can we reduce the time we spend writing one up? Introducing a commit standard would enable us to use automated tooling that makes communication about code changes effortless.

Consider an open-source repository with hundreds of contributors. Project owners often adopt standards and industry best practices because it makes the project easier to maintain as the number of contributors increases. Eventually, our engineering team will grow to this point—and, just like in an open-source project, we can’t expect engineers to retain all of our conventions in their heads when they contribute. Standardizing commit messages eliminates one of the many variables around how we commit code. It can give engineers more confidence in their releases, build trust in our codebase, and increase productivity.

Many engineers have a distinct working style. If you propose a change to their everyday workflow, you will likely encounter some resistance. That’s why identifying and working with key stakeholders before you introduce a new process can help ensure its success. One way to do this is to chart stakeholders on two axes—influence in the organization and interest in the project:

I used this chart to decide how I would direct my communication with the team. Folks who fell into the “low influence” and “low interest” quadrants didn’t need to be involved in the whole process. Instead, I kept them informed by using project-specific slack channels and documentation in Notion to communicate status updates and summarize meetings. Topics that required a team decision were discussed verbally rather than using Slack to avoid potential miscommunications.

The more likely someone was to push back on the project or give me valuable feedback, the more involved they were. I included those who fell into the “high influence” and “high interest” quadrants in almost every meeting. These folks served as a kind of litmus test for my ideas. They typically had high standards and expectations and needed to be convinced that a change was worthwhile if they were going to get behind it. Keeping people like this involved in the discussion is a great way to ensure that your initiative will produce value for your organization.

In a perfect world, we’d have standardized commits in every repository. However, given that Alto is a fast-moving startup, foundational changes need to be rolled out incrementally to minimize churn, validate impact, and allow us space to learn and iterate. There’s often not enough time or resources to do everything, and going all-in on something may require more effort than it’s worth.

We began by identifying the knowledge gaps we currently have about commit standardization and how we could iteratively validate the required process changes. We initially considered beta testing with the production app that runs our day to day operations because it had the most contributors and the most to gain from standardization. However, we didn’t want to risk blocking the majority of our team or experimenting with a project that was critical to business operations. The next best option was our internal component library—it had fewer contributors, so fewer engineers would be blocked if something went wrong, and more projects depended on it, so the potential impact would still be significant.

Given that one of our company values is to Focus On Impact, and that internal changes like this are difficult to measure, we quantified our level of success or failure using a team survey. We sent out a series of questions at the start of the project asking the team to rate their satisfaction with our current commit, review, and release processes. We plan to compare these results with a follow-up survey to measure changes in ease of committing code, confidence in releasing, and our developer NPS.

After closing our knowledge gaps and getting a baseline understanding of how the team felt about our release processes, we decided to adjust the scope to include the following changes:

Commit Standardization (i.e., formatting and enforcement of commit titles)

Versioned Release Automation (i.e., automatic version cuts, changelogs, and notifications)

We looked toward existing open source solutions to make these changes because we were on a tight schedule. There were many options to choose from, so narrowing them down to a shortlist before presenting them to the team helped speed up the decision-making process. The best tools for the job will depend on your engineering organization, of course, but we prioritized maturity, flexibility, and compatibility with our existing workflows during our evaluation.

We landed on the Conventional Commits standard because it has been vetted and used extensively in other projects, and a whole ecosystem of release tooling has been built around it. It also has a short learning curve, is flexible enough to work with all our repositories, and only enforces the bare minimum necessary to generate semantic versions based on commit titles.

We chose Commitizen to help engineers get familiar with the new standard, Commitlint to warn about (but not block) contributions with invalid commits, and Semantic Pull Requests to serve as the final gate for validating commit titles. This way, non-standardized commits are only stopped from being merged when a pull request is made, and it can be easily corrected using the GitHub UI.

The open-source tooling for release automation was sparse and highly specialized, but we found Semantic Release to be the exception as it offered the most mature, flexible solution. It manages everything from cutting a release to generating a changelog to publishing packages and notifications. It also isn’t limited to only publishing NPM packages, making it an excellent fit for our multi-language codebase.

While we have a ways to go before versioned releases are automated in all of Alto’s repositories, we’ve made a significant first step with commit standardization. Some engineers have already proactively adopted the new standard without any tooling, and I’ve personally found that it has helped my commits stay focused and become more granular.

So far, we’ve standardized our component library. The commit history in this repository used to look like this:

Commits now have more context in them that’s visible at a glance (e.g., feature vs. fix), and breaking changes are explicitly noted in the commit message using an exclamation point (e.g., refactor!). These commit titles are used to automatically generate a changelog any time we cut a release. We can even automatically cut and version-bump a release for every new commit because we follow a commit standard.

The next phase of this project will be to review and act on the feedback from the follow-up survey. We will continue to build on top of these standards with release automation tooling and discuss what process changes make sense for the rest of our codebase. We are confident that through these changes, we will be able to de-risk code contributions, reduce the burden of cutting a release, and better prepare for our engineering team’s future growth.

If you have any questions about Alto, or are interested in joining our team, please reach out via LinkedIn.

How (and Why) We’re Standardizing Our Commit Messages

Every year, we look forward to October, when we get a whole month to honor the extraordinary work of the pharmacists and pharmacy technicians at Alto and around the world.

Celebrating National Pharmacist Month at Alto

Every year, we look forward to October, when we get a whole month to honor the extraordinary work of the pharmacists and pharmacy technicians at Alto and around the world. National Pharmacist Month is a time to celebrate the many ways that pharmacy professionals positively impact their communities. At Alto, we get an intimate look at how pharmacists improve the health and well-being of others every single day through their expertise and exceptional care.

This year’s theme is “Essential Providers, Accessible Care,” recognizing the vital roles that pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are playing on the front lines of healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. From the common cold to chronic disease, pharmacists are always there to answer important health questions and make sure medications are not only accessible but used safely and effectively.

National Pharmacist Month is a great time to show your appreciation for the pharmacy professionals who help with your medications. It’s also an opportunity to learn more about the depth of their expertise. For example, did you know that becoming a pharmacist requires a doctorate degree? Pharmacists are not only experts on medication management, they also serve as patient educators, perform laboratory studies and health screenings, and act as skillful problem solvers. Whether we’re facing an acute issue or a chronic condition, many of us turn to our pharmacists to suggest supplements, over-the-counter medicines, or lifestyle adjustments that can help us feel better. 

In addition to our month-long celebration of pharmacy professionals, the third Tuesday of October has its own special designation: National Pharmacy Technician Day. On this day, we recognize the unique and invaluable contributions of pharmacy technicians. A critical part of any healthcare team, pharmacy technicians work closely with pharmacists to make sure patients get the medications they need. Technicians not only assist in the preparation and distribution of medications, but they also work directly with community members to collect patient information and help process billing claims.

Both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are essential in providing us with access to safe and effective treatment when health issues arise. This year, more than ever, we are grateful for their steadfast dedication to your care. 

In honor of the 116 incredible men and women who perform these vital roles at Alto, here are five facts you may not know about the pharmacy profession:

October 12th is Women Pharmacists Day! About 55% of pharmacists are women, making pharmacy a predominantly female field. 

Pharmacists are the most frequently visited healthcare providers in America. They can be found working in a variety of settings—from hospitals to the neighborhood pharmacy—and we turn to them most often for health advice. 

The world’s oldest prescriptions were etched into tablets around 2100 B.C

Benjamin Franklin is considered one of the founding fathers of pharmacy. He helped to establish the first public hospital and hospital pharmacy in the United States. 

Agatha Christie, the crime novelist, worked as an apothecary’s assistant, or what we would now call a pharmacy technician. Her interest in medicine was apparent in much of her writing, inspiring her many plot lines about poisoning and disease. 

We at Alto could not be more proud of our incredible pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. Through your skills as educators and guides, you uplift the health and well-being of the communities you serve. 

Want to express your gratitude to the pharmacists at Alto? You can reach out by phone or through the app to say thanks and brighten their day. 

Switching to Alto is easy and takes only a few minutes. Here's what you can expect to know about savings, free same-day delivery, and access to our expert pharmacists.

How Do I Transfer a Prescription to Alto?

It really is possible. In just a few minutes, your days of standing in line at the pharmacy could be over for good. From now on, your refills will arrive safely at your doorstep exactly when you need them — no more wondering if they’ll make it on time or if they’re even on their way. And you’ll have ongoing support from a team of pharmacists through secure in-app message, helping you feel comfortable discussing any health concerns freely. 

You can switch to Alto in minutes using our app, by going online at alto.com, or by calling Alto at 1 (800) 874-5881. 

We’ll contact your current pharmacy to arrange the transfer right away. It may take a few business days to receive your prescription from your old pharmacy, but we’ll keep you up to date along the way. As an alternative, you can ask your doctor to send a new prescription directly to Alto.

Not only are the services we provide at Alto completely free, but we’ll also do our best to identify ways to save you money. It’s true—your copay stays the same when you switch to Alto and there are absolutely no hidden delivery or service fees. We’ll investigate coupons, copay cards, and other savings options in order to find you the best price — we’ve saved our patients more than $23 million on their medications! 

Once your transfer is complete, we’ll reach out to schedule your free delivery. You select the delivery date and window that works best for you, and you can follow your courier in real-time as they make their way to your door. Your medications will be hand-delivered by a member of our local courier team. In most instances, you can designate a safe place for your medications to be left in the event you are not home or if you prefer contact-free delivery. 

And, our packaging is designed to keep your temperature-controlled medications cold (but not too cold!) from the time they are packaged at our pharmacy until they reach the door. 

Our team carefully assembles each order the same day it leaves with our local couriers. Ice packs and other insulation are included based on the specific count and weight of your refrigerated items.

“Keep Cold” and “Refrigeration Required” stickers indicate the specific medications that you should store in the refrigerator so nothing is missed when unpacking the delivery.

We’ve tested our packaging methods to verify that medications remain within appropriate temperatures for at least 12 hours (36 hours if sent overnight via FedEx).

Finally, if you’re wondering if we carry your medication, the answer is yes. We fill all types of medications, including specialty, over-the-counter, brand, and generic. And if you have questions about your medications, our team is available to answer your questions from 9 am – 12 midnight ET Monday – Friday, and 10 am – 9 pm ET on weekends; reach out by in-app secure messaging or phone.

If you’re excited about the benefits of switching to Alto — whether it’s the potential savings, free same-day delivery, or easy access to expert pharmacists — there’s no reason to hesitate about transferring your or your family’s prescriptions. We’ve designed the process to be quick and easy. 

Ready to make the switch to a better pharmacy? Sign up through the Alto app or call 1-800-874-5881. 

How Do I Transfer a Prescription to Alto? 

More Americans than ever are receiving their prescriptions through the mail. But with recent United States Postal Service (USPS) policy changes to delivery times, prescription mail-order delivery is no longer a reliable or affordable option.

Concerned about Mail Delays tying up your Prescriptions? There’s a Better Way.

How to avoid postal delays and pharmacy lines with Alto

More Americans than ever are receiving their prescriptions through the mail due to increased interest in delivery, greater convenience and the safety of avoiding crowded pharmacies. But with recent United States Postal Service (USPS) policy changes to delivery times, and temporary price increases due to the upcoming holidays, prescription mail-order delivery is no longer a reliable or affordable option for many people

In 2019, over 170 million prescriptions were filled by mail in the United States. According to a recent report, that number increased by 20% since the onset of COVID-19. But the USPS continues to be overburdened and unable to keep up with demand, admitting that standards for first-class mail delivery services have decreased in the last year and will only continue to slow down by 30%. 

That means millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma are facing a dangerous dilemma. They can either risk unnecessary exposure to COVID-19 knowing they are especially vulnerable to the virus or possibly go without life-saving medications for days due to delays in the mail. 

Alarmed by the striking slow down, Jacqueline W. Fincher, MD, President of the American College of Physicians, released a statement cautioning that “a delay in receiving a necessary prescription could be life-threatening. My patients who rely on their insulin, or their inhalers, or any other type of medication can’t wait weeks to see whether or not their prescription will be delivered.”

A pharmacy partner that’s always on your side

The solution to mail order stress and delays? Alto Pharmacy’s free courier delivery service. Here’s why our doorstep hand-delivery is the best method for ensuring your prescriptions arrive safely and on time.

Same-day, contactless delivery: We skip the mail, preferring to hand-deliver your medications that very day. We also provide contactless drop-offs to ensure everyone stays safe.

Zero risk of in-transit delays: Your prescriptions will never change hands during the delivery process, increasing not only speed, but safety as well.

Convenient scheduling: Select from multiple daily 3-hour delivery windows that work with your schedule.

Real-time tracking: Stay updated throughout the delivery process via text 

Always free - There are never any hidden fees—your delivery is completely free. 

Say goodbye to lost and late prescriptions

We’re committed to helping you lead a healthier life by providing swift and safe access to the medicine you need. And we’ll work with your health insurance to ensure you’re receiving your medications on time and at the lowest price possible. 

Making the switch to Alto is easy - we’ll handle the transfer. Reach out any time by phone at 1-800-874-5881 or in-app messaging.

This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in September 2020 and has been updated for accuracy and completeness.

Concerned about Mail Delays Tying up Your Prescriptions? There’s a Better Way.

The first two members of our Advisory Board are Dr. James Hildreth and Jennifer Kent. Their years of experience as leaders in the healthcare industry will be invaluable to us as we continue to grow.

Alto Pharmacy's newly formed Advisory Board launches today with two anchor team members.

Since our launch in 2015, Alto has been committed to fulfilling medicine’s true purpose, and improving quality of life, for everyone who needs it. Today, we announce our newly formed Advisory Board and our first two anchor members, who will help guide Alto towards our mission, advise on key decisions, and support strategic initiatives. We’ve formed the Advisory Board to support our leadership as we navigate the regulatory landscape, launch new features to modernize the pharmacy experience, and adhere to the highest standards of operational excellence and patient care.

The first two members of our Advisory Board are Dr. James Hildreth and Jennifer Kent. Their years of experience as leaders in the healthcare industry will be invaluable to us as we continue to grow. 

Dr. Hildreth is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Meharry Medical College, one of the nation’s oldest and largest private historically Black academic health sciences centers. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, his Ph.D. in immunology from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He was the first Black American in the 125-year history of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to earn full professorship with tenure and is internationally known for his influential HIV research.


Jennifer Kent served as the Director for the California Department of Health Care Services, where she led the second largest public healthcare system in the nation, with an annual budget of over $100B and serving over 13 million Californians. She oversaw the administration of 24 managed care plans as well as 56 county behavioral health plans. She has also held leadership roles in the Health & Human Services Agency, Governor's Office and has experience in the private sector as a lobbyist, consultant, and association executive. She has more than 15 years of health administration and policy experience in California.

This is an important milestone for Alto, and we look forward to working closely with Dr. Hildreth and Jennifer on the future of Alto. 

Today, we announce our newly formed Advisory Board and our first two anchor members, who will help guide Alto towards our mission, advise on key decisions, and support strategic initiatives.

Announcing Alto’s Advisory Board

Jaime Tolbert is a Patient Care Pharmacist based out of Alto’s Denver office. Here she shares what drew her to Alto and how the company is fulfilling its mission to be a better pharmacy.

Delivering the Best Care

Jaime Tolbert is a Patient Care Pharmacist based out of Alto’s Denver office. Here she shares what drew her to Alto and how the company is fulfilling its mission to be a better pharmacy. 

Prior to Alto, I worked in retail pharmacy for 13 years. My patients were the best part of my practice and helping them live healthier and happier lives was very fulfilling. When our company was bought out by CVS, there was a shift from caring about people and their health to a very task based environment. Spending the majority of my day on administrative work, being timed to finish each task, and not having time to really engage with my patients was devastating to me as a health care professional, and my work became less meaningful. One of my former colleagues had taken a position at Alto and shared how much she loved the company and its values. She offered to introduce me around and show me first hand what it was like to work here. I found that Alto puts their patients above all, and really cares about both the people they serve, and their employees. They are open to new ideas and changes, and really listen when you have thoughts and ideas about how to better serve our community or improve processes. 

Coming to Alto meant leaving behind my “family” of patients whom I loved and had worked with for years. Although this was a difficult decision, it is one I would make again in a heartbeat. This company is making a real change in pharmacy and in healthcare. After 6 months, I can honestly say I love to come to work, and I am so thankful every day for the opportunity to be part of something that is changing the face of healthcare. (And, as Alto expands our services in Denver, I am hopeful to bring many of those wonderful people to our company and offer them the personalized care they deserve.)

Working for Alto has brought me back to the reason that I became a pharmacist…to help people and to make a difference. My primary role is to focus on our patients- making sure they understand their medications, have a resource for information to answer all of their questions, and to give them the care that they deserve while keeping them safe from drug interactions or other medical issues. 

As patient care pharmacists, we are problem solvers, detectives, drug information resources, and caring providers of health and wellness to our patients. Regardless of what we do, we want to make sure we are acting in the best interest of the patient. There are instances in which people call in late at night with medication issues such as: their fertility medication has not been stored correctly and they need their injection right away, or their injection did not go as expected and they don’t know how to proceed. In these moments, we have to do some detective work and figure out if the drug is OK to use or not, or make judgement calls on the best course of action for these patients. It can be difficult to remain calm when patients are panicked or confused, but it’s our job to be a voice of reason, a sense of calm in the storm for the patient.

In the 13 years I spent in retail pharmacy, I wasn’t able to go nearly as in-depth with patient care as I do at Alto. In the retail setting, you perform all aspects of the job from start to finish mostly on your own, often within a strict time limit. At Alto, the company has separated the pharmacist role into two teams: a production team and a patient care team. The production pharmacists get to focus solely on medication preparation and inventory management while the patient care pharmacists can focus on patient consultations and clinical recommendations.

We definitely still try to work efficiently, but we have the luxury to take a 30-45 minute phone call to consult our patients and comfort them, if necessary. Some of the medications that we administer, like our fertility meds, can be really overwhelming. We have the benefit of taking time to walk patients through tough moments like their first injection, which is especially helpful on evenings and weekends when their doctor isn’t available.

Unlike the retail setting, all of Alto’s patient care interactions are done through phone calls or secure message via our app. This model presents a lot of benefits including more privacy for the patient/pharmacist conversation.  Another benefit is the ability to reference those dialogues with the pharmacy in the event, for example, the patient forgets how the pharmacist advised to take the medication. The model also forces our team to really focus on every aspect of our messaging. We work hard to tailor both how we speak to patients and how we draft messages to ensure our patients feel a strong sense of empathy and can understand their instructions clearly. Our team also shares one voice. If a patient speaks with me about their defective medication on Tuesday, and that patient is then put in touch with one of my colleagues the following Wednesday, they will receive the same quality care and same customer service, and my colleague will have all of their most current information in detailed notes. 

Another unique factor about Alto is the team dynamic. There are 20 patient care pharmacists between the Denver and San Francisco offices. Working alongside other pharmacists every day, I’ve been able to learn so much about pharmacy that I didn’t know before. In a retail setting you're the lone individual making decisions and calls based on your interpretation of a situation.  Now, I have this entire team with varying perspectives to bounce ideas off of or go to for advice if something comes up that I have never dealt with before.

Our supervisors at Alto are also very skilled in identifying their employees’ strengths and inviting them to work on new projects. I really enjoy explaining things to people, so I’ve helped to re-write the training program for our patient care pharmacists; everything from surveys of how my team thinks we should train, to the training schedule, to physical training guides to help develop our new PCPs. That’s an opportunity I never would have had in traditional retail and I am grateful for the opportunity to help expand and train our team. I feel like working as a team is a great way to grow as a pharmacist, and ultimately benefits our patients which is why we are here.

Delivering the Best Care: Why a Veteran Pharmacist Chose to Join the Alto Team 

Breaking Open the Black Box of Medication Pricing

Anna left her doctor’s office with a glimmer of hope. For months, Anna had been struggling with digestive issues and now her doctor had suggested they try a promising new medication. Finally, she thought, maybe this new medication could provide some relief and her life could return to normal. But when Anna arrived at her pharmacy, she was shocked to discover the medication would cost $400 per month! The pharmacist at the counter explained that if she couldn’t afford the copay, she would need to call her insurance or her doctor to “figure it out.” Frustrated and overwhelmed, Anna left the pharmacy empty-handed and with the distinct feeling that healthcare had been designed to work against her.

Unfortunately, Anna is not alone in encountering obstacles that prevent her from getting the medication she needs. From the moment we leave the doctor’s office, we are thrust into a maddening, depersonalized system that feels like a big black box. We are left to navigate it all on our own, especially when it comes to medication pricing. 1 in 3 Americans admit that they aren’t taking the medication they need because of cost. This is not only harmful to our long term health as patients, but also a devastating cost to our country. It is estimated that there are 125,000 avoidable deaths per year and nearly $300 billion in downstream medical costs due medication non-adherence. You may have heard stories of diabetic patients who, faced with climbing insulin costs, died from skipping doses or resorting to cheaper alternatives. For these patients and their families, getting the right medication is an issue of life or death. And for many like Anna, it’s, at the very least, very high stakes.

Today, medication pricing is set by multiple stakeholders in a process that is entirely hidden from patients and doctors:

Your employer contracts with a pharmacy benefits manager (or “PBM”, like Caremark, Express Scripts, etc.) whose job is to determine which medications should be covered or not under your insurance plan (even down to the exact dosage and brand that your doctor prescribes).

The PBM negotiates with the drug manufacturers to agree upon a specific price to charge the employer for a medication, the remaining copay for patients, and the PBM’s hefty cut for administering the service. It’s not hard to imagine how commercial incentives might color decisions on which medications are covered and how they are priced.

Drug manufacturers also offer copay assistance programs for select medications, with varying eligibility criteria, but these are marketed primarily through doctors, meaning patients often don’t know these assistance programs exist or if they qualify.

Today, none of this data is transparent or shared. These parties (doctors, drug manufacturers, PBMs) do not have the incentives nor the technology in place to coordinate with one another to act in the patient’s best interest. Drug manufacturers and pharmacies get paid by the medications dispensed, doctors get paid by the appointment/procedure, and PBMs get paid through taking a hefty cut of the negotiated medication price. These parties are naturally incentivized to pursue a path that delivers the highest financial return with the least amount of effort. Sitting in the center of this web, pharmacies are uniquely positioned to coordinate the best outcome for the patient. Traditional retail pharmacies, however, don’t have access to technology solutions that would easily bridge the gap between insurer, manufacturer and physician. It’s no wonder medication prices continue to climb and the process of getting medication remains so inefficient.

At Alto, we asked ourselves, “What if every patient could have a pharmacy expert on standby to help him/her navigate the complex world of medication pricing?”

We believe that pharmacy’s role is to make the process work around patients, rather than asking patients to learn how to work the system. So we built a modern pharmacy software platform that enables our Alto pharmacists, billing specialists and patient advocates to coordinate between doctors and insurance companies to ensure patients have clear choices and transparency on medication pricing.

Alto is the first pharmacy to proactively:

Show patients the price of a medication both with and without insurance, within minutes of receiving their prescription. These prices matter because sometimes the price without insurance is actually cheaper.

Match patients with savings and copay assistance programs offered through drug manufacturers. Often, patients and doctors don’t have time to manually keep track of these programs, so our service automatically searches for eligible programs.

Help patients and doctors navigate the complexities of insurance, whether by identifying an alternative medication that is more affordable under the patient’s plan or helping to petition insurance to cover the medication (a process called Prior Authorization). Compiling all the paperwork and medical history data required by these insurance processes takes up valuable time from doctors (estimated at 20 hours of work per week per doctor). Our technology automates this process so patients can quickly get access to the medications they need.

Here’s what all this means for a patient like Anna:

When Anna told her doctor about the expensive copay, her doctor sent the prescription to Alto. Anna’s doctor knew that Alto would help with the paperwork needed to petition insurance to cover a patient’s medication. Within a few hours, Anna received a notification from Alto that they’d worked with her doctor to start the process with her insurance. In the meantime, Alto had matched her with a program from the drug manufacturer that would reduce her copay so she could get started on her therapy right away. When her first Alto package was delivered that evening, Anna regained that early glimmer of hope, relieved to have the Alto team in her corner. Within days, Anna’s insurance approved the coverage, and Anna has been able to stay on the medication, better managing her symptoms (and her medication costs) for over a year now. Anna has been able to focus on her health and feel some semblance of her new “normal.”

Since Alto Pharmacy opened four years ago, we’ve had the privilege to help hundreds of thousands of patients and physicians. By harnessing the power of our pharmacy team and our technology, patients get access to the best medications, at the best possible prices, delivered to their home the same day. 

We are proud to be cracking open the black box surrounding medication pricing and giving Alto patients a new level of transparency and control in their health journey. And we are hopeful that with increased awareness and patient advocacy, systemic changes are on the way that will help make medications more accessible and affordable for everyone.

Monica Tran has led the Product and Design team at Alto for two years, helping build a suite of products for pharmacists, physicians and patients that allows Alto to break down barriers to medication access and transform the pharmacy experience. She recently transitioned into a leadership development and coaching role, helping to scale Alto’s organization, values and patient experience.

Today, we are excited to announce a $250 million Series D funding round, bringing our total funding to over $350M.

Bringing Alto to a Neighborhood Near You

Mattieu Gamache-Asselin, CEO & Co-founder

Today, we are excited to announce a $250 million Series D funding round, bringing our total funding to over $350M. We are honored to welcome Softbank to our team of investors and thrilled that our existing investors — including Greenoaks, Jackson Square Ventures, OliveTree Capital, and Zola Global — have reinvested to accelerate our mission to bring the Alto experience to 100 million people by 2025.

Over the past four years, we’ve delivered over 1 million prescriptions directly to our patients’ doors, and created a service that makes our patients happier — our patient NPS is over 80 for the fourth year in a row — and healthier — our medication adherence rate is 77% compared to an industry average of 50%.

This has been possible because we’ve learned from experienced community pharmacists, we’ve reimagined and rebuilt the underlying infrastructure of pharmacy, and, most important of all, we’ve built an amazing and diverse team that truly lives out our values every day. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d get to work on such a meaningful mission with such a genuinely passionate and talented team. Whenever I have a tough day and need a boost of energy, I walk through our pharmacies and look around in awe at all the hard work, care and perseverance that goes into making this type of service possible for our patients — from our pharmacists and patient care champions to our couriers and product managers, all working together.

Blog

Two Engineers Crunch the Numbers: When Is It Cheaper to Pay Cash for Your Medication?

How Alto Delivers More, at No Additional Cost

Traditional vs. Online Pharmacies: How Alto Built Something Better

Hello, New York!

How (and Why) We’re Standardizing Our Commit Messages

Celebrating National Pharmacist Month at Alto

How Do I Transfer a Prescription to Alto?

Concerned about Mail Delays Tying up Your Prescriptions? There’s a Better Way.

Announcing Alto’s Advisory Board

Delivering the Best Care: Why a Veteran Pharmacist Chose to Join the Alto Team

Breaking Open the Black Box of Medication Pricing

Bringing Alto to a Neighborhood Near You

Switch to a better pharmacy.