Medisafe Pill Reminder & Medication Tracker App Review

As the name suggests, the Pill Reminder & Medication Tracker app from Medisafe is a medication management app. The app is designed to help you keep track of your medications.

One of the main features is a daily calendar, which shows your daily medication schedule. There are also optional medication reminders that will send you an alert when it is time to take medication.

There are a variety of other interesting features too, which we’re going to highlight in this review.

In Brief

Our Full Medisafe Pill Reminder & Medication App Review

• What is the Medisafe Pill Reminder app?
• How does it work?
• The paid version of the app
• Medisafe Pill Reminder & Medication App reviews
• Our thoughts about the app

What is the Medisafe Pill Reminder App?

The name says it all. This app is simply designed to remind users to take their pills. Its main feature is a medication schedule, where you are able to add medications and get reminders when it is time to take them.

There are also some related features, like the ability to record measurements, take notes and keep details about appointments.

How Does it Work?

All medication tracker apps allow you to enter in medications, but the Medisafe app has more features than normal. The sections include the following:

• Medication name
• Reminder times: You can choose frequency (from 1x to 12x per day), every number of hours (from every hour to every 12 hours). For each time, you can choose how many doses you need to take.
• Schedule: You can choose ongoing treatment or number of days, along with whether you’re taking the medication eery day, specific days of the week, at specific intervals or on a recurring cycle.
• Med icon: You can choose the shape and color combination for the medication, which makes it easy to tell at a glance which medication is which.
• Condition: You can select which condition you are taking the medication for. The app lists the most common reasons for taking the medication. You can also search for a condition or choose ‘not specified’.

Scheduling

The scheduling feature of the Medisafe app deserves a special mention.

Being able to set a medication schedule is a critical aspect of any medication management app. It is also the hardest bit to get right, as medication schedules can be complex.

Medisafe has the normal options, such as choosing to take the medication every day or on specific days of the week.

You can also set a days interval, anywhere from every 2 days to every 100 days or more. Finally, you can choose a set cycle. The current selection of cycle periods are:

• 21 + 7; 22 + 6; 23 + 5; 24 + 4; 26 + 2; 28 + 0
• 35 + 7; 42 + 7: 63 + 7; 84 + 7
• 14 +14

You have the option of whether or not you want to use placebo pills during the break days.

The number of cycle options is honestly quite impressive. From customer support comments, it also looks like cycles are added in if users request them.

There will still be some medication schedules that the app doesn’t cover, even so Medisafe has more options than most of ther apps that we’ve seen.

Medication Information

The app also provides a screen with details about each medication. Here, you can change your reminders, set an alert for picking up refills and find out more details about the medication.

Other Features

The calendar and medication sections of the app are the main aspects, but there are also some less obvious features.

• Measurements. Allows you to track various vitals, lab results, body measurements and similar information.
• Notes. A section for you to take whatever notes you need.
• Appointments. A section for keeping track of appointments.
• Doctors. A place to list doctors and any other healthcare providers.
• Refills. This section records details about your refills and refill history.
• Report. Provides a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly report on how often medications were taken. Interestingly, this can be sent as a status report to a recipient.

Finally, there is an Updates section. This is where Medisafe provides details about changes to the app. Right now, the section also contains information about the coronavirus and related health tips.

Some users complain about the coronavirus updates, as the app alerts users when there is a new one. However, there is a setting to unsubscribe from coronavirus notifications or from all update notifications.

Medfriends

This feature isn’t very clear on the app, but Medisafe also has a Medfriend feature. A Medfriend is someone who can sync to your app.

If you don’t take your medication, then your Medfriend gets a notification. This is a very useful feature from the caregiving perspective.

The app syncing feature also means that there is a backup for your data.

The Paid Version Of The App

While the Medisafe app itself is free, there is a paid version as well.

The paid version costs $3.99 per month or $32.99 per year (which is a 31% saving).

One cool thing is that most of the paid features aren’t essential. You don’t need special colors or voices. The ability to have unlimited Family Profiles and Medfriends is useful for caregivers, but many individual users won’t need these features.

Likewise, the 20+ Health Measurements apsect is useful but it won’t apply to many people.

Medisafe Pill Reminder & Medication App reviews

Reviews of the app are overwhelmingly positive. On Google Play, the average is 4.6 stars across more than 200,000 reviews. It’s unusual to see ratings this high for any app.

Many reviewers had a similar experience to us, finding that the app works well and does exactly what it claims to. Other key responses include the following:

• Great that you can add dependents so that multiple sets of medications can be tracked.
• The app is flexible and reliable.
• Makes it easy to track main medications and take-as-needed medications at the same time.
• Easy way to show a doctor or someone else the medications that you are regularly taking.

While users tend to enjoy the app, some have highlighted specific issues or limitations, which are important to be aware of.

• Some questions on the app cannot be skipped or, if skipped, just lead to more questions. This can be frustrating if you only want to use some features of the app and not others.
• Takes a surprising number of steps to enter details.
• The feature that highlights medication interactions, while useful, is not always accurate. This is partly because it does not take into account the condition that the medication is being taken for.

There are rare reports of glitches too, such as one user who mentioned that they could not access their appointment details. This could be a serious problem, especially if you did not have the appointment information anywhere else.

That being said, it’s best to always have a backup. Try not to ever fully rely on a single app to store all of your data. There’s always the risk of a glitch. Even the best apps have their issues from time-to-time.

Online versus Offline Use

The app can be used offline but some features appear limited. For example, inputting new medications when offline is more difficult, as the app does not seem to connect well to the database.

For most situations, this means that you’ll need to be online when setting up the app or adding new medications. This requirement isn’t unreasonable, but it can be frustrating.

After all, some people may not have regular internet access on their device, especially if they’re using a tablet not a phone.

Our Thoughts About the App

Honestly, the Medisafe app is impressive. It has a ton of features and many different scheduling options – all as part of the free version.

The paid version might be relevant to some situations where caregivers need to monitor medication use by loved ones.

If nothing else, this is a free app that you can use without even creating an account. Adding medications is simple, so even if you’re not convinced, the app is worth trying out.

You never know, it might make life much easier.