Saving Money On Prescription Drugs
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
First, a small savings win. I was sure I’d replaced every bulb with LEDs, but last night I saw two small fixtures with (egads) an incandescent and a CFL using 56 watts per hour. I quickly replaced them with two 3W LEDs (25W equivalent) that cost $2 each. We leave those lights on at least 12 hours per day, so the annual savings works out to approximately $44/year, paying back the cost of the new bulbs in just 5 weeks. Please switch all your bulbs to LEDs!
Now, the main event. Prescription drugs are expensive, on average about $1200 per person per year the US. And 18 million Americans are unable to pay for a needed medication. Unfortunately, solutions to these issues are well beyond this newsletter’s scope, but here are some helpful tips that could save you 25-50% (or more) on your prescriptions:
90-Day And Mail Order Options for Lower Copays
If you have private insurance, your insurer likely offers significant discounts for using their mail order pharmacy, such as Caremark or Express Scripts. For example, if your pharmacy benefit is Caremark (by far the largest in the US), it’s fairly likely that they will cover a prescription for a 90-day supply of a drug via mail order for a similar or only slightly higher cost than a 30-day supply from your local pharmacy. It’s not practical to do this for most one-time prescriptions, but for anything recurring this is likely a significant savings. Just ask your doctor to send a 90-day prescription to your mail order pharmacy.
Coupons
Most manufacturers of expensive prescription drugs offer coupons. These coupons often have fine print (they can only sometimes be used with private insurance, and never with Medicare or other federal insurance programs), but can often save you money. Whenever I’m at a pharmacy waiting to fill a prescription I’ll usually Google “[drug name] coupon” just to see what comes up.
Consider Prescription Drug Savings Programs
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you may have received an Amazon Prime Rx card in the mail recently. Alternatively, there’s a good chance you’ve seen TV commercials for GoodRx, a similar prescription discount card. If you’ve never used these programs, here’s how they work:
You receive a card in the mail (or print one out from a website)
These cards may only be used when you are not paying with insurance, but if you have a very high copay (or a deductible that you’re unlikely to hit), it is likely worth checking to see what the cost would be with a discount card.[1]
When you pay for your prescriptions, you present the card at the pharmacy, either in-person or via your online pharmacy. In the case of Amazon’s new card, they also have an online pharmacy that may in some cases offer lower prices.
The pharmacy will apply the discount. On some common drugs, the average savings can be well over 50%.[2]
How do these programs offer such deep discounts? The mechanics are extremely complex (this post does a great job of explaining them), but the best one-sentence explanation is that different pharmacies compete to offer the best price on a given drug. The entire operation is kind of analogous to the “opaque booking” sites for hotels, like Hotwire and Priceline.
Finally, Always Go For The Generic If Possible
Typically, drugs whose patents have expired will have generic or biosimilar versions manufactured by competitors. These versions are typically much cheaper than the brand name while being (more or less) identical. In many states and contexts, the pharmacy will automatically choose the cheapest option, but in some cases you may need to ask your doctor if there is a generic option.
A great example is insulin, one of the most expensive prescription drugs. In recent years, WalMart has released its own versions of some types of insulin at significantly reduced prices under the “ReliOn” brand. Whenever I hear a story about diabetics rationing or unable to afford their insulin, I wish they were aware of WalMart insulin (or some of the other discount options above).
And now…Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:
I’ve enjoyed Agatha Christie’s Poirot (available on BritBox, with a 7-day free trial via Amazon) for a while now. The show is a terrific adaptation of Agatha Christie’s series of short stories about detective Hercule Poirot, and features many young British and Irish actors in guest appearances before they became famous, including Hugh Laurie, Damian Lewis, Emily Blunt, Michael Fassbender, and Aidan Gillen.
Also enjoyed this week:
If you watch the incredible HBO series Succession, you must (!) read this profile of Jeremy Strong.
This Is Why the Nation Is Facing a School Bus Driver Shortage (interesting behind the scenes interview on the school bus industry)
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.
[1] The catch here is that since you aren’t paying with insurance, any purchase you make with one of these discount cards will not count toward your deductible or out-of-pocket maximum on your insurance. If you are insured and regularly hit your out-of-pocket maximum, these cards probably aren’t for you. But if you don’t, or don’t have insurance, they’re worth a try.
[2] Amazon states that the “average savings for all generics are 78%; 37% for select brand medications”