I received another forwarded email from my Aunt 'Net that I suspected was another of those Urban Legend things that float around because the premise that there was really such a wide disparity in the price of drugs from one pharmacy to another was not somethin' I would have believed, as I would be of the opinion that such was actually true, it would have been already widely known. However, it appears that my check with snopes says it is indeed a very true fact. If there are any legislative candidates lookin' for an issue on health-care, this would seem to be somethin' you could put out there. I mean ... what is this?
Steve Wilson, a reporter with WXYZ-TV in Detroit, conducted an investigative study into the cost of generic drugs at various pharmacies and other retail drug outlets and found quite a disparity between the highest and lowest prices charged for certain generic drugs. For example, the Prescription Drug Price Comparison Chart available in conjunction with Wilson's report shows that a one-month supply of Fluoxetine HCL (the generic for Prozac), which wholesales for $1.48, varied in retail price from a high of $92.24 to a low of $9.69 just within the Detroit area.Maybe the real problem with the high cost of prescription medicines ain't the pharmaceutical companies but is the fault of the pharmacies themselves. Posted by notGeorge at March 29, 2004 09:38 AM
I spend a fair amount of time researching drug prices. I wrote a prescription for a lipid lowering drug for a patient that was $90.00 at one of the big chains, and $21.00 at Costco. Frequently when I get prescriptions filled at this expensive pharmacy they tell me “that will be a $20.00 dollar copay.” Uh, no I answer. Just because my copay is $20.00 doesn’t mean I am going to fork it over for a drug that is $8.99 cash. It’s a scam this particular chain uses all the time. Always ask what the price of a drug is going to be as if you were going to pay cash. It’s often less than the copay
Posted by: Azygos at April 1, 2004 09:15 PM