CNN Tips on Cutting Prescription Drug Costs
August 13, 2008 – 4:04 pm by ScottSchoenvogelWhen Elizabeth Cohen posted her tips on how to cut prescription drug costs(http://tips.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/10/dealing-with-rising-prescription-prices/), she made no mention of the numerous $4 programs at Wal-Mart, Target, Krogers, etc… that are available to consumers. We recently helped a member who was averaging over $900 per month in ”generic” prescription drug costs cut that number by $700 simply by moving the member to a pharmacy with a $4 program instead of the CVS / Walgreens generic mark-up standard. That was $8,400 of immediate annual savings simply by shopping around for generics. While everyone has started to push generics, most people have forgotten to mention that CVS and Walgreens are making a fortune marking up generics over other pharmacy prices (you don’t really think CVS and Walgreens are paying more for generic drugs than Kroger’s, do you?).
She also posted a tip by Dr. Adair to avoid free samples. Since many brand name drugs have a generic which is an exact match, I would offer up that you accept the samples and then ask your doctor to write a prescription for the “brand name or a generic alternative” – with the doctor’s permission on the script your pharmacist can do the rest of the leg work and fill that prescription with an appropriate low cost alternative.
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