<< Back to all Blogs
Login or Create your own free blog
Layout:
Home > Discount Drugs (or It Pays to Ask)

Discount Drugs (or It Pays to Ask)

December 12th, 2006 at 01:44 pm

That's the legal kind (of drugs I mean)!!! My DH went to the doctor on Friday and was prescribed some medication for his high blood pressure. The doctor mentioned to him that Target carried the generic version for $4.00 for the 30 day supply. Target is about a 20 minute drive and I happened to be headed for our local Giant grocery store where I usually fill our prescriptions. I told him I would check out the pricing there and let him know. I asked the pharmacist to please check the price and let me know before filling the prescription. She told me is would be $20.00 with my prescription plan co-pay. I told her no thanks, I was going to see if the doctor was right about Target. She immediately offered to check, saying that they had a data base with pricing from both Target and Walmart. She confirmed that the price was $4.00 and was able to offer to match that price for me. Yeah!!! Saved me $16.00, and a 20 minute drive or at the least a phone call and a drive back to Giant. It felt really weird asking for a price comparison on a prescription but it was painless and took less than 5 minutes total. If I calculated the savings into an hourly wage, I would earn $192.00 an hour ($16.00 per 5 minutes). Wow - wish I could find a full time job like that!!! Anyway, even though I felt silly telling her no thanks to the first price of $20.00 I am glad that I did. And obviously I am not the first person to do this or they would not have the competitions pricing and make offers to price match. We do not get prescriptions filled very often but in the future I will definitely call around and check rather that just assuming that my co-pay price is the best that I can do. What I find ironic about the whole thing is that the $4.00 price was without my prescription plan and we have been paying COBRA for our insurance since July to be able to stay insured. Got to appreciate the irony in that one.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Discount Drugs (or It Pays to Ask)”

  1. fern Says:
    December 12th, 2006 at 03:43 pm 1165938213
    1165938213

    If more people did what you did, put them on notice you are comparison shopping, it can only help prescription drug prices for all of us.

    It is surprising you could do better than your standard $20 co-pay with the insurance. I had heard that once Wal-Mart introduced cheap prescriptions, Target followed suit, but only on certain widely used drugs, so if you can take advantage of that, go for it!

  2. fern Says:
    December 12th, 2006 at 03:45 pm 1165938315
    1165938315

    I never bothered to comparison shop for meds before, cus i figured the $15 co-pay was pretty cheap, but am finding even better pricing when i opt to go thru my insurer's meds by mail program for drugs you use on an ongoing basis. You get 3 months at a time and it's delivered to your door.

  3. janH Says:
    December 12th, 2006 at 03:59 pm 1165939180
    1165939180

    I didn't know some would price match drugs...Thanks for the information!

  4. mbkonef Says:
    December 12th, 2006 at 05:19 pm 1165943988
    1165943988

    I hadn't known that they would price match either. I just told the pharmacist I was going to see if the doctor had been right about the Target price. She offered to check for me and then offered to match the price. Hopefully others will be able to use this to save themselves time & money.

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]