by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Aug 27, 2015 | Drug Prices, Generic drugs, Online Pharmacies, Your Stories
[This is an unedited message from a consumer. You’ll note that, unfortunately, international online pharmacies raise their prices, too! If you have a story you’d like to tell, email us at yourstories@pharmacychecker.com.]
“I chose to order my Celebrex 200mg from a Canadian pharmacy when the price from Pfizer skyrocketed and the generic did the same. I assume you know that Pfizer selected a certain few US generic manufacturers to make it. They have kept the generic price almost as high as Pfizer’s. That is an unavoidable result of price control by Pfizer.
I have had good results from [Pharmacy Name Redacted]* although they have raised the price for 90 about $10 each time I have refilled. May switch to a different one from your list next time.”
-Ann K.
*PharmacyChecker does not wish to highlight specific international online pharmacies in our blog. You can view the current list of online pharmacies that sell branded and generic versions of Celebrex.
by PharmacyChecker.com | Aug 5, 2015 | Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation, Prescription Discount Cards
Appearing on Fox and Friends this past Saturday morning, Tod Cooperman, MD, founder of PharmacyChecker.com, discussed our favorite topic – affording prescribed medication. The hosts wanted to know what is behind a recent class action lawsuit against CVS Health Corp in which the chain pharmacy is accused of overcharging consumers on generic drugs and how Americans can prevent getting bilked on price by pharmacies.
Lawsuit: CVS overcharged for generic drugs
CVS, like many chain pharmacies, has a prescription discount program, and the discounted prices can often be less than the co-pay required with some pharmacy benefit plans. However, CVS has apparently not been informing customers of the lower, discounted price. What has been happening is that hundreds of thousands of CVS customers have paid more money using their health insurance because the co-payments are higher than the discount program price.
Dr. Cooperman basically informed the public that this is probably a pretty common practice among U.S. chain pharmacies with similar programs. He said: “It’s really kind of ridiculous because you have people with insurance who…are being charged more than if you simply walked in and asked for the cash price or discounted price.” So what do you do? When you go to your local pharmacy, ask the pharmacist or pharmacy technician for the absolute lowest price you can pay. Call different pharmacies in your neighborhood, because generic drugs can sometimes cost five times more at one pharmacy than they do at another.
When medication is not affordable at your local pharmacy, international online pharmacies are an option for savings. Dr. Cooperman stated: “about five million Americans actually are now going outside the U.S. because they can’t afford their prescriptions.” Pharmacies in other countries sell safe and effective medications at much lower prices but rogue websites abound — so stick to verified international online pharmacies and compare their prices on www.pharmacychecker.com. Dr. Cooperman noted the technical illegality of personally importing meds but that the FDA doesn’t “go after consumers for doing it.”
Anna Kooiman, one of the hosts, mentioned that people lose their lives because they can’t afford medication. She added, “Listen, it might be illegal but some people do what they have to do to save their own lives.”
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jul 31, 2015 | Drug Prices, Government, Medicare Drug Plans, Policy
To hear it from the pharmaceutical industry, Medicare Part D, the federal program that helps American seniors and the disabled cover medication costs, is a highly popular, successful, low-cost program. That’s bunk. According to a new paper, written by authors Marc-Andrew Gagon, PhD. and Sidney Wolfe, MD (Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration and Public Citizen, respectively), drug prices covered under Medicare Part D are wildly inflated compared to drug prices in all other countries. Ok. We knew that already. That’s why seniors continue to import medication from other countries! But seriously, this report includes fresh data and critical analysis to reminds us, and hopefully convince Congress, that not only are we paying too much as taxpayers and consumers but Americans often cannot afford to take prescribed medication at all, and that leads to more hospitalizations and higher healthcare costs.
We’ve noted on many occasions the government’s survey data showing that about five million Americans import prescription drugs for personal use due to cost. About 750,000 are seniors, most who are subject to the coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole” of Part D, which, despite improvements under Obamacare, still leads to millions of seniors struggling to afford medication. Their decision to buy more affordable medication internationally makes sense. According to the new report, even the rebated brand name drugs under Part D are almost twice (198%) the cost paid in countries that make up the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – the most advanced economies.
The report is called “Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Medicare Part D pays needlessly high brand-name drug prices compared with other OECD countries and U.S. government programs.” You can find it here. (more…)
Tagged with: gagnon, OECD, Part D, public citizne, seniors, sidney wolfe
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jun 12, 2015 | Drug Prices, Medication non-adherence, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs, Skipping medications
If not treated properly, the breathing condition known as asthma is deadly. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that nine people die each day from asthma and in 2009 there were 3,388 deaths. Flovent is an inhaled corticosteroid that treats asthma. Flovent not only makes breathing easier for asthma sufferers, it helps prevent severe attacks that can cause hospitalization.
But Flovent can be prohibitively expensive, especially if you are uninsured or your health insurance will not cover this medication. Kids are often the victim of high asthma drug prices. A 3-month supply of Flovent Diskus (fluticasone propionate) 250 mcg inhalers costs around $778 at a local pharmacy. Based on a typical dosage, that works out to $3,112 per year. That’s a huge number considering the median family income in the U.S. is about $52,000 a year –and of course tens of millions of families make due with much, much less. According to one academic study, failure to take your asthma medication often leads to “decreased quality of life, lost productivity, increased health care utilization, and even the risk of death.”
Pharmacy discount cards can help the situation. With a discount card the price for a 3-month supply might drop down to $684 at a U.S. pharmacy for a 3-month supply, a savings of $131.
But the costs are far lower in other countries for the same medication. Instead of calling it Flovent Diskus, GlaxoSmithKline markets fluticasone propionate as Flixotide Discus, which is sold in licensed pharmacies throughout the world. The foreign version of Flovent Diskus 250 mcg inhaler can be purchased online for about $123 for a 3-month supply or $492 a year. That’s a potential discount of about 84% and a savings of $2619 per year off the price of Flovent Diskus sold in the U.S.!
According to the CDC, about one in 10 children have asthma. It’s a serious but treatable condition. There are effective medications like Flovent Diskus, which is approved for children as young as four years old. My son suffered from cold-induced asthma as a smaller child and it’s scary, and that’s why this particular condition makes me so mad. Parents often can’t afford asthma medications and sometimes must bring their kids to the hospital when their asthma flares up. I think that’s unforgivable and that no parent should have to watch their child suffer, and yet they do from the high cost of medications in the U.S.
Tagged with: 250mcg, asthma, diskus, flixotide discus, Flovent, GlaxoSmithKline
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jun 5, 2015 | Drug Prices, Generic drugs, Online Pharmacies
The media rage these days when it comes to prescription drug prices is three-fold: 1) generic drug price spikes of literally thousands of percent, 2) specialty medications that cost $1.000/pill, and 3) cancer treatment costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year! We’re glad the media is loudly covering the public health crisis of high drug prices, but its focus of late seems to take the heat off of never ending brand name drug price increases and the pharmaceutical companies that charge those prices. We haven’t forgotten. For us the heat is on: including a loud reminder that these brand drugs are sold much more affordably outside the U.S., and can be found and safely purchased online.
To help us, I looked to the research of David Belk, MD. Dr. Belk, who is concerned with, and voraciously researches the insanity of healthcare costs, publishes a website called True Cost of Healthcare. His research shows that brand name drug prices increased by 13 times the rate of inflation over the past two and a half years. These are medications for which there is no available generic in the U.S. He looked at 335 drugs, their wholesale prices and tracked their increases from the October 2012 to the beginning of 2015. Only one drug, Norvir, actually came down in price. Dr. Belk writes: “All other brand name prescription drugs on my list went up a minimum of 9% and an average of just over 40% in price in only 2 1/2 years.”
While these brand drugs aren’t $1,000 per pill like Sovaldi, many Americans really can’t afford them. Below are two examples of brand name drugs that if purchased outside the U.S., would potentially save an American $4,000 a year and/or prevent that American from going without a prescribed, essential medicine for Diabetes or Asthma.
Januvia 100mg (siptagliptin), a drug that treats type-2 diabetes could cost you $1,149 for a three month supply at a local U.S. pharmacy. With a prescription discount coupon, you might get it for $963. If that’s too much, then brand name Januvia, marketed by MSD (a subsidiary of Merck), can be purchased online for $103.50 from an international online pharmacy– a percentage savings of 91% and a cost savings exceeding $1,000 over 3 months. Over a year, the cost savings is about $4,000.
Another example is Advair Diskus (fluticasone propionate/salmeterol), a popular asthma medication that is out of reach for many Americans due to cost. A three month supply of the 250/50mcg inhaler can run you $1,050 in a local U.S. pharmacy. With a discount card the price might be reduced to $874. At a verified international online pharmacy, the drug called Seretide Accuhaler, the name brand used by GlaxoSmithKline to market fluticasone propionate/salmeterol in several countries, is only $105: another three-month savings of $1,000 and annual savings of $4,000.
This summer at PharmacyChecker.com we’re going to keep the heat on the pharmaceutical industry with lots of examples of the crazy costs of normal brand name drugs in the U.S., and cooling things down for consumers with lots of savings you can find online.
Tagged with: Advair Diskus, Cancer medication, Dr. David Belk, generic drug prices, Januvia, Merck, Seretide Accuhaler, Sovaldi, speciality medications
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 29, 2015 | Drug Prices, Generic drugs, Online Pharmacies
Yesterday, AARP published its latest Rx Price Watch report, which highlights generic prescription medication price changes from 2006-2013. Generic medication is considered the best avenue towards lower taxpayer and consumer drug costs. In the mid-1980s, passage of the Hatch-Waxman Act helped bring lower cost generic medication to the market faster and fueled intense price competition among generic manufacturers. The result was 1) much lower drug prices on medications that have lost their patents (often 90% lower) and 2) an exceedingly high generic penetration rate with generics comprising 85% of all medication use. AARP’s report suggests that generic drug prices continue to decrease, which is good, but at a much slower rate, “indicating that the era of consistent generic drug price decreases may be coming to an end.”
Stay calm. Generics are still usually much lower cost than the brand names and that will continue to be the case. AARP’s report notes that 2013 had the lowest average generic price decrease (4.1%) since 2006. However, AARP’s data also shows considerable fluctuation in this rate, enough to question whether or not we’re really experiencing a new normal in which generic drug prices no longer decline year after year. For example, the decreases in average generic drug prices that occurred in the prior two years, 2011 and 2012, 9.1% and 14.5%, respectively, were the highest since 2006. These numbers, however, most likely reflect what’s referred to as the “patent cliff” – a time when many patents on blockbuster brand name drugs, such as Lipitor and Plavix, lost their patents, thus allowing much lower cost generics to enter the market. As I see it, we don’t really know the future trend of generic drug prices.
Again, most generic drugs are way cheaper than their brand name counterparts and just as safe and effective. The big generic drug problem is that the cost of some generics has spiked outrageously over the past few years, sometimes beyond the reach of the American consumer. Usually when we talk about insane price increases of brand name drugs year over year the percentages are 10, 20, 30 or even 40%. But the increases for some generics have literally been in the 2000% range! One crazy example, reported by the People’s Pharmacy, showed that the cost of the antibiotic doxycycline skyrocketed from six cents ($.06) to $3.30, a 5500% increase.
In fact, directing you back to our research from November 2014, we found that even brand name versions sold in foreign pharmacies can be MUCH lower cost than the generics sold here! Please keep in mind that those same generics mentioned in our analysis may have already come down in price domestically. So before you buy from an international online pharmacy, check your local pharmacy first.
Tagged with: AARP, brand name drugs, Doxycycline, generic drugs, Hatch-Waxman Act, Lipitor, Plaxvix, The People's Pharmacy
