Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Saving on Prescription Medication

We have health insurance through my employer.  We do not, however, have a copay for prescription medications.  This is somewhat new for us, and caused a fair amount of sticker-shock when it first happened.  I want to share a few things you might try if you have prescription medications you need to pay for out-of-pocket.


One thing I learned was that calling around can make a big, big difference in the price of a medication.  I called several pharmacies to find the best price available.  I also learned that Costco pharmacies are availabe to everyone, regardless of membership status.  If there is a Costco near you, give them a call, for pricing.  Even if you don't have membership there, you can still get prescriptions filled at the Costco pharmacy, and their prices were really competetive.

If a generic option is available, that makes a big difference too.  If you are able to take a generic instead of the formulary, that cuts price significantly.  The other consideration to ask about is capsules vs. tablets for medicines in pill form.  I priced one medication where there was a price difference of $80 on a 90-day supply if it was in tablet form instead of capsule form.  My prescription was written for capsules, so I called and requested that change.

Finally, though, what really saved me a lot of the cost of my prescriptions was going through Good RX.  Good RX is a website that compares prices and offers you coupons to help you save on the medicines you have prescriptions for.  My cost went down significantly when I went to the site and entered my prescriptions and printed coupons.  As an example, I had a 90 day supply of a medication that, after calling around, my lowest price was $98.00.  (ouch!)  When I entered the information into Good RX, It came up as $38 at a local pharmacy (who had quoted me the $110.00 before).  I called and verified that they did indeed take Good RX coupons, so I had my prescription filled there.  In fact, when I was there, one of the technicians also searched for additional coupons & discounts and brought the price down to $25.00 for a 90-day supply.

I am not certain that it will work for everyone in every situation, but I had considerable savings using Good RX.  It is free to use, there is no 'membership' of any sort, and so for me, it was definitely worth a try.  I am sharing this with you in hopes it will help you too.  I am not in any way affiliated with Good RX - I get no benefit from telling you about them, but I hope it is helpful for you!


2 comments:

  1. Sam's pharmacy does not require a membership either and they have great prices. We have not taken any meds for several years but the heart attack has us back in the meds game. Thankfully they are 100% paid for after meeting our out of pocket max for the year.

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  2. Even with prescription coverage it pays to shop around. We use a CVS, but we use them because of their proximity to us and because when we are traveling if we had an emergency we could pick up a prescription anywhere.

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