Don't Buy Your Drugs at Chains Like CVS and Rite Aid: It's Costing you Big Time

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/dont-buy-your-drugs-chains-cvs-and-rite-aid-its-costing-you-big-time



According to a new Consumer Reports investigative study published Thursday, there is rampant variation in the price of generic drugs as large U.S. pharmacy chains — including CVS, Rite Aid, and Target — marking up the prices of generic drug versions for common medications by as much as 18 times what wholesale chains like Costco charge. That price variance ends up costing Americans, who spend an average of $758 out-of-pocket on drugs every year, hundreds of dollars in unnecessary spending each month.

Consumer Reports compiled the data by contacting hundred of pharmacies throughout the country and asking what their drug prices were for generic versions of Lipitor, Plavix, Actos, and other common medications. The results were striking, with pharmacy representatives claiming that the higher prices were necessary for covering overhead, and considering that selling medication constitutes most of their revenue and profit margins:

Costco was the least expensive overall, and you don’t need to be a member to use its pharmacy. A few independent pharmacies came in even cheaper, though their prices varied widely, as did grocery-store pharmacies. The online retailers Healthwarehouse.com and FamilyMeds.com also had very low prices. On the other end of the spectrum, CVS, Rite Aid, and Target had the highest retail prices. [...]

A representative of CVS told us that its retail drug prices reflect other services offered by the chain, including drive-through windows, automated prescription refill systems, free outreach programs to help make sure patients are taking their prescriptions correctly, and 24-hour pharmacies. Costco pharmacies, the cheapest overall, are open only from 10 a.m. to 7 or 8:30 p.m. and are typically closed on Sundays.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Need to know which drugs they are talking about also.

We get 90 day supply of generic meds for 10.00 here, from local pharmancy, which covers over a 100 different meds at that price.
Name brand versions would be pretty expensive tho.

[Fawke Em]

2. Where are we supposed to buy them?

We finally got a Costco, but it's about 20 miles from my home (odd that - they put the Costco on the conservative side of town and are building a Chic-Fi-La on the liberal side of town. )?

Guess I'll have to stick with Walgreens - middle of the spectrum there - since the Costco is far away, we don't have the other stores mentioned and I won't go to Walmart.

[Laurian]

3. When your insurance requires that you use a specific pharmacy, you

have very limited choice and little ability to effect this problem.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Yep. And CVS is one of the typical 'preferred' chains specified. n/t

[Laurian]

6. The ultimate insult was to have a CVS employee say,

"You can blame Obama" when my husband questioned a price!

[narnian60]

8. That is disgusting.

Did your husband have a reply?

[Laurian]

10. Yes. He also talked to the manager about it.

Who knows if they talked to employee about keeping her political views to herself, but one can hope.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Sure, because he sets prices for CVS.

CYS used to be a good discount drug store with a pharmacy attached. Now it's a pharmacy attached to a crappy discount store.

[okwmember]

4. We get several of our prescriptions at Costco

because the cost is less than our insurance copay for the same generic medications. It also allows us to buy 90 day prescriptions without having to go through the mail order pharmacy.

[hunter]

7. Games insurance companies play...

I suspect it works like hospitals. People without insurance pay one price, which is high, while the various insurance companies pay all sorts of prices and require all sorts of co-pays; sometimes these co-pays are higher than a reasonable retail price of the medicine.

Currently I'm taking only one med that's not a "four dollar" generic type, and the price of that non-generic medicine ranges all over the place, depending on who you ask and how. It's almost like airline tickets. I don't know how much my insurance company really pays for it. I asked once and they told me it was $160. It's $90 from the mail-order Canadian pharmacies. I pay $30 as a co-pay.

I've been in situations where I can't afford my prescriptions, which at times have exceeded $400 a month. I know which "four dollar" meds I can survive on, but surviving is not the same as being fully functional.

When I lived in Southern California, and before it became such a pain in the ass to cross the boarder, I'd sometimes buy meds in Mexican pharmacies.