GoodRX

A very sad but true story and guess what our pres. was right on the gag rule. DW was getting ready to retire so we asked CVS if we lose our ins. copay how much will we pay. The lady took my two scripts and wrote a cost on each . One 130.00 and the other 120.00 for three months each . I ask what !!! we now pay 18.00 and 21.00 for three months . I asked here if there was anything they could do ….NO ! So we check good RX , coupon at CVS both 7.00 and 7.50 a month . We went to Costco and the price is the same as with her co pay . Last Thursday I told my Doctor about this , he shook his head and told me to go to Costco , take my pill bottles and have them call him.
 
sengsational said:
Yeah, if we're going to boast about getting computerized, how about the doctor submits it to my choice of a GoodRx-like service that shops it for me, finds the best price locally and by mail, and lets me pick the cheapest place, or whatever my criterion is.
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Oh that's a great idea!
But, why would a company want to build "their own gallows" to reduce profits?

What's needed(imho) is a Bogle for healthcare. Someone who is motivated to change how an industry works, including ideas like what you're suggesting. I'm not optimistic that person is around. I hope I'm wrong.

As far as boasting about computerized medical healthcare advancements, our local clinic is one of a few HIMSS level 7 providers. They still can't make an appointment and keep it. They still can't forward medical records to others..... Technology is not the only answer.
 
MRG said:
I have health insurance that's useless when it comes to formulary. My dogs have none.

Goodrx saves me hundreds on medication I need but my insurance won't cover. So in addition to the premiums, I pay $250 a month for needed medication.

Do you use Goodrx for flea, tick, heartworms meds or dual use meds.
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GoodRx covers meds that humans use. It does not cover canine / feline only stuff. My dog has epilepsy and takes the same meds a human would.
 
travelover said:
Except the difference between a paper and an electronic prescription can be hundreds, even thousands of dollars since you can't easily shop it around. The prescribers could set it up so it was a pull system with an assigned prescription number and the filling pharmacy would pull it off their website.
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Well remember you don't have to take it even if the pharmacy has already filled it for you. Check it on Good RX and if it's cheaper have them re-run it and if another local pharm is much cheaper make them transfer it. My issue isn't the electronic RX, it's the Walgreens and places that fill it the minute it comes in and doesn't wait for you to request the fill.

I got burned by this when my DH got discharged from his last cardiac surgery that had some heart rhythm issues. They say they are going to discharge but take forever for everyone to sign off on the discharge order. At 9 am they are saying maybe he'll spend a couple 3 days at the short term rehab place closer to our home the rehab will handle the meds. After they check his labs and he get some more exercise at 1PM they decide, no he can go directly home so at 2pm they give me the RX for the Meds.

I'm 75 miles away from home,my local pharmacy is 15 miles from my home in the opposite direction, my DH can't be left alone and really can't spend that long in the car. it's now 3PM and he needs his next dose at 9PM. I say uncle and go to the hospital pharm which charges me an extra 100 bucks for the meds because I'm not comfortable going home without the pills in my possession.

I check Walgreens and his insurance same price as hosp pharm and thanks to reading here about GoodRX am able to get the next fill for a hundred dollars cheaper. .


I didn't have my wits about me or I would have checked GoodRX at the hospital and looked for a possible pharm on the way home from the hospital where I could save the 100 bucks. It had been a rough 9 days and we had never needed GoodRX before since he was taking cheap generics.
 
I've used goodRX at Costco and got a pretty good discount. Main downside was that I did get the discount, but it doesn't show up on my insurance, so it wasn't applied towards the deductible. That wasn't the case in the past when I used manufacturer's discounts.
 
So it's not that unusual for insurance copays to be higher in price than the actual cost of the drug.

It's been happening about 25% of the time.

Insurance copays are higher than the cost of the drug about 25 percent of the time, according to a study published in March by the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

USC researchers analyzed 9.5 million prescriptions filled during the first half of 2013. They compared the copay amount to what the pharmacy was reimbursed for the medication and found in the cases where the copay was higher, the overpayments averaged $7.69, totaling $135 million that year.
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Culprit is PBMs which handles prescription drugs for insurers.

Often, when the copay collected is higher than the drug price, the PBM claws back the difference.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/why-a-patient-paid-a-285-copay-for-a-40-drug
 
big-papa said:
I've used goodRX at Costco and got a pretty good discount. Main downside was that I did get the discount, but it doesn't show up on my insurance, so it wasn't applied towards the deductible. That wasn't the case in the past when I used manufacturer's discounts.
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Check this thread re GoodRX & Costco. It resulted from me trying to use a GoodRX coupon for 26 for an item I paid 38 under my Plan D.
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/goodrx-and-plan-d-93241.html
Basically Costco told me if I had Plan D I had to use it. I told them to ignore the insurance and they said Medicare required the Plan D to be used.
If I had taken a paper script to another pharmacy probably could have used it.
 
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If you have a recurring prescription, especially insulin, give Canada a try. Marks Marine Pharmacy has the insulin I use for $90 vs $550 best rate with GoodRx.
 
Damn, I got burned again today. Pooch has a bladder infection and the vet prescribed an antibiotic. I could get a paper prescription or just pick up the pills at the vet. I figured the cost would be a little more at the vet, but worth the convenience. The 14 pills were $68. When I got home I looked at GoodRX and found I could have gotten 20 pills for $9 at the local supermarket pharmacy. :mad: I wrote an email to the owner of the vet clinic to share my experience.

No more prescriptions filled without price comparison.
 
HaveEnough said:
If you have a recurring prescription, especially insulin, give Canada a try. Marks Marine Pharmacy has the insulin I use for $90 vs $550 best rate with GoodRx.
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That's because we (USA consumers) subsidize it :(

Just for sh*ts and giggles, lets say that the makers of Lantus solostar pens have to make $300 per box of 5 pens to make enough money to manufacture, advertise, pay drug reps, pay for R&D of the existing drug and new drugs, pay for future lawsuits regarding said drug, pay for lobbyists to whisper in government ears, pay for the FDA process and the FDA equivalent processes in other countries, etc. etc. etc. Doesn't matter if you agree with any of the above, it just is.

Canada has price controls so the company can only charge $90.
Mexico has a smaller average household income so to not price themselves out of the market they only charge $40
Europe has price controls so they only charge on average $110
Wonder where the manufacture can make up the difference? America where there are no price controls and the manufacturer charges $600. The money has to be made up somewhere :(
 
One thing I'll say about GoodRX.

I had a prescription filled for high BP medication, Valsartan, at a Safeway using the GoodRX price.

I got a call from them, after I'd taken it for a couple of weeks after getting a 90-day supply.

The Valsartan was recalled because one of the impurities was linked with cancer.

So I got a replacement with another drug and Safeway refunded the whole amount of the Valsartan.

Now it's suppose to be generic but maybe they get supplies from cheap Chinese companies or something?

Because it sounded like some manufacturers of Valsartan didn't have the problem with the impurity.

So maybe that's how they get lower prices, by sourcing from questionable suppliers.
 
explanade said:
One thing I'll say about GoodRX.

I had a prescription filled for high BP medication, Valsartan, at a Safeway using the GoodRX price.

I got a call from them, after I'd taken it for a couple of weeks after getting a 90-day supply.

The Valsartan was recalled because one of the impurities was linked with cancer.

So I got a replacement with another drug and Safeway refunded the whole amount of the Valsartan.

Now it's suppose to be generic but maybe they get supplies from cheap Chinese companies or something?

Because it sounded like some manufacturers of Valsartan didn't have the problem with the impurity.

So maybe that's how they get lower prices, by sourcing from questionable suppliers.
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My understanding is that GoodRx does not source the medication, the pharmacies do. Good Rx aggregates pricing information and shares it with you.

Are you saying that GoodRx called you and reimbursed you? Or that the Safeway pharmacy did?
 
Safeway.

It was an automated call from corporate.

No details other than stop taking and return immediately.

So I had to Google.

My point is maybe that’s how some of these pharmacies offer low prices and GoodRX displays the lowest prices.
 
explanade said:
Safeway.

It was an automated call from corporate.

No details other than stop taking and return immediately.

So I had to Google.

My point is maybe that’s how some of these pharmacies offer low prices and GoodRX displays the lowest prices.
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Maybe but I'd just go with the idea that they all use pretty much the same suppliers and some pharmacies just make a lot more money off of people's illnesses and misfortunes.
 
It's my understanding, if you have a high deductible HI plan with no co-pays, using only deductible towards payments, you get the better price of prescriptions minus the insurance write down. This gets applied to your deductible but co-insurance is out of the picture.

For instance, a generic drug co-pay is $5. I no longer have co-pays on anything. I pay the prescription price minus what the insurance pays, comes to @ $2.00. When any service or prescription falls under a co-pay, the co-pay is in stone for that policy. I thought the PBS story stated the pharmacy management benefits from a co-pay only.
 
Ronnieboy said:
That's because we (USA consumers) subsidize it :(
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The example you shared presumes that the maximum price set by governments around the world do not allow the company to make a fair profit. I don't believe this is the case. Why would a company sell their product in an environment where they lost money on each sale? Of course they wouldn't. These government limited prices MUST allow for a reasonable profit, or they wouldn't be in that market.

So if they're selling something outside the US for $100 and making a 15% profit ($87 COGS), and the charge US customers $600, they're making a 590% profit, hardly fair.

I get it. They are required to maximize shareholder value. The rules they operate under allow them to do it, and they'd be behind other companies if they didn't take advantage of it. That's why we need a law that allows us to buy internationally. Worldwide pricing would solve the problem overnight.
 
The president is working on this , I seen a speech of his saying that the Europeons just flat out negotiated a better price . He said that in the U S if it takes 30.00 to make a script and only 10,000 people are to use the script they have a formula so the price may become 467.00 . The problem is this group , he had a name for them is corrupt and once the volume increases the costs never reduce . This is where the GAG law is coming into effect . If you ask a pharmacist if there is a cheaper way , they will tell you there is none.
The president said there are all kinds of bonuses that the pharmacies are not passing on to consumers.
God bless him if he can work this out.
 
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I thought part of the law that enacted Medicare Part D bars the govt. from negotiating drug prices.

And in any event, any price negotiated by govt. would only apply to govt programs like Medicare, not to private insurers like Aetna or UHC.

Or presumably, the coverage provided by employers to their workers.
 
The president brought up a script that in the U S was 400. per month and in Europe it was 35.00 . His claim was that there are these people like actuaries that work for the Pharm . companies and set the prices . He said that places like Sweden declined to pay the 400.00 . I think this is because Sweden is a socialist country and the government pays for scripts. I might have misunderstood the whole thing but he also said the pharmacies are not passing on discounts to consumers. ( capitalism )
 
Breedlove said:
The president is working on this , I seen a speech of his saying that the Europeons just flat out negotiated a better price . He said that in the U S if it takes 30.00 to make a script and only 10,000 people are to use the script they have a formula so the price may become 467.00 . The problem is this group , he had a name for them is corrupt and once the volume increases the costs never reduce . This is where the GAG law is coming into effect . If you ask a pharmacist if there is a cheaper way , they will tell you there is none.
The president said there are all kinds of bonuses that the pharmacies are not passing on to consumers.
God bless him if he can work this out.
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I think you are wading into politics, but you might want to expand your source of information a bit. I've seen no actual legislation proposed to deal with this issue nor any actions from the executive branch that would improve the situation. I'd love to be proven wrong.
 
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I like it , section 18 shows a beginning and it also addresses the gag law . Could be a campaign promise but lifting a few regulations will lower costs . This needs addressed .
Big Pharma seems to be one of the biggest lobbyists out there . When this was first announced Health care stocks dropped . Someone took it serious .
 
"Lifting a few regulations" like the completely arbitrary decision to prevent me from filling my prescription from Canada or the UK.
 
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