Cost of Medication, a little tip I learned

[AngelwithDentedHalo]

Trying a secondtime, lost what I typed.

Anyway, I learned on the news something about the cost of medication. Couple of the most expensive places to get medication is CVS and Target. Two of the CHEAPER places is Costco and Sam's Club.

For example: At CVS Lipitor is $117 and at Costco $17.

Another thing I learned on the news about the cost of medication on a different day is if you have a pharmacy such as CVS where medications as they put it are their bread and butter, it's NOT the medication that costs so much but the PHARMACY that drives up the price. ANY pharmacy that specializes in filling prescriptions tend to cost more than someplace else like Costco.

Another example is when I was getting this one inhaler I take at Walmart, the cost without insurance was something like $120 and now that I get my prescriptions at Walgreens, the same inhaler is a whopping $310 without insurance.

The news said to shop around to find the best prices. Before I had insurance, I had to pay out of pocket for some meds and when I had to prep for a colonoscopy once, the cost of the prep at Walgreens was $76 ad when I had gotten one at Walmart once, it was only $50.

So if you don't have insurance, do research to find the best deal and BTW, they SAID on the news tonight that the higher priced medicines they were talking about were GENERICS!!! So you can imagine how much the name brand might be. Anyway, thought I'd pass that on.

 

[C0urt]

my potiga is around 1200 without insurance at cvs

 

[RobinN]

Great info Angel! I am on a Health Savings Plan now but thankfully I don't take any meds at this time. I will certainly pass this info on to my daughter.

 

[DancesWithPugs1980]

A chain here that's owned by Kroger price matches to Costco's pharmacy. I don't know if all stores owned by Kroger do, but for anyone in the Pacific NW, Fred Meyer does. I found this out when I lost my insurance some years ago (the only downside of divorce lol). The pharmacy tech who saw the look on my face when she told me the full cost of lamotrigine said really quietly, "I'm not really supposed to tell you this, but we'll price match to Costco." lol. I did that until I found out about my state's prescription drug plan and jumped on that.

 

[pita300]

When I had good insurance I could get name brand drugs like Tegretol XR Lamictal for 70.00 each. Now that I don't have insurance I found that Walgreens has a discount card for 20.00 per year. Since losing my insurance I've be put on generic Keppra without discount was 660.00 per month and lomotrigine was over 500.00 with the discount card the generic Keppra is 220.00 and lomotrigine is 217.00. The Tegretol XR at CVS with out insurance was 160.00 at Walgreens 121.00. I checked these prices at Costco and were more than Walgreens with thier discount card. It has more than paid for itself since I got it. With my current financial situation I have applied with all 3 drug companies to get a 6 month supply of my meds for free. I have never qualified for these programs before but now that I'm unemployed and make little money I should have a good shot at it. Plus would be name brand and not these generics that are full of fillers and don't work the same as the name brand.