by PharmacyChecker.com | Jul 6, 2012 | Drug Importation, Drug Prices, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
A new study, reviewed in Medpage Today, finds that seniors falling into the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage gap, often referred to as the “doughnut hole,” reduced the number of monthly anti-depressant prescriptions they filled by 12.1% compared to those with full coverage. In 2012, Part D plans share drug costs with enrollees up to $2,930. With co-pays, premiums, and deductibles seniors pay about $1,500 up to that point. After $2,930 the doughnut hole begins and plan enrollees pay out-of-pocket until they have spent $4,700 – after which the plans pay for 95% of drug costs.
The study also showed that those in the doughnut hole were more likely to go without other medications. Monthly use of heart failure drugs and anti-diabetics fell by 12.9% and 13.4%, respectively, relative to the group with full drug coverage. The study, Effects of Medicare Part D Coverage On Medication and Medical Treatment On Elderly Beneficiaries With Depression, was published in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
We’ve previously reported that the doughnut hole is a serious health issue for America’s seniors who are unable to afford needed medication. The new healthcare law offers seniors substantial discounts in the doughnut hole on brand name medications, and by 2020 the doughnut hole will supposedly be closed. The discounts help seniors to access medicine, but the crisis of skipped medicine will persist through the decade. Until then, it’s critical that seniors do not stop taking needed medications.
Medicare enrollees in the doughnut hole face very high drug costs for popular products such as Lexapro, Cymbalta and Abilify, all used to treat depression. These very medications are, on average, 80% less expensive if ordered from the lowest priced verified online pharmacies. See the chart below for price comparisons of verified international online pharmacies and a U.S. bricks and mortar pharmacy.
Prices for Three-month Supplies of Popular Anti-Depressants
| Drug |
U.S. Bricks and Mortar Pharmacy* |
Lowest Pharmacy-Checker.com Listed Price** |
Savings Over 3 Months |
Percent Savings |
Savings Over 1 Year |
| Abilify 10 mg |
$1,881.99 |
$332.10 |
$1,549.89 |
82.35% |
$6.199.56 |
| Cymbalta 30 mg |
$637.00 |
$133.20 |
$503.80 |
79.09% |
$6,199.56 |
| Lexapro 10 mg |
$351.00 |
$84.61 |
$266.40 |
75.90% |
$1,065.60 |
| Average: |
$956.66 |
$183.30 |
$773.36 |
80.84% |
$3,093 |
* Pharmacy in New York City, price collected 7/5/2012
**Lowest price listed on PharmacyChecker.com as of 7/5/2012
Tagged with: affordable prescriptions, Anti-depressants, Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies, personal drug importation, pharmacychecker.com, prescription non-adherence, save money, skipped medicine
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 28, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Personal Drug Importation, Skipping medications
Americans die and get sicker every day because they can’t afford their medications.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will help provide health insurance for millions of Americans, reducing the cost of their medications. But we’re not there yet! We’ve compiled statistics – see below – on the negative health effects of prescription non-adherence due to cost. Our country needs greater access to safe and affordable medication now, including through verified international online pharmacies that offer far lower prices on essential medications.
Here are the stats:
- 25 million Americans report becoming sicker because they are not taking medication due to its cost. 1
- An estimated 150 million prescriptions go unfilled each year due to prescription costs.2,3
- 125,000 deaths occur per year among patients with heart disease due to prescription non-adherence. And that’s just for heart disease. The number of deaths per year among all conditions due to cost-related non-adherence is unknown. 4
- Americans who skip medication due to cost are almost twice as likely to experience a significant decline in overall health over 2 years of follow up.5
- USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation/ Harvard School of Public Health Health Care Costs Survey, 2005. 20% of survey respondents report not filling a prescription due to cost; and 54% of those said their condition got worse as a result. Extrapolated to the 2012 population of adults 18 and older, (234,564,071), that is 25 million.
- McCarthy R. The Price You Pay for the Drug Not Taken. Business Health 1998. Reports that 20% of prescriptions go unfilled, and 15% of those go unfilled because the drug costs are too high.
- IMS National Prescription Audit PLUS reports 4.024 billion prescriptions dispensed in 2011. If 80% of prescriptions written are dispensed, then 5.03 billion prescriptions were written. 15% of 20% of 5.03 billion is around 150 million prescriptions forgone due to cost.
- McCarthy, R. The Price You Pay for the Drug Not Taken.Business Health 1998. Quote from Daniel Gerner, chairman at the time of Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council.
- Heisler et. al, The Health Effects of Restricting Prescription Medication Use Because of Cost. Medical Care, Volume 42, Number 7, July 2004
Tagged with: ACA, Affordable Healthcare Act, Drug Prices, prescription non-adherence
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 18, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Importation, Online Pharmacies
This Op-ed by our vice president, Gabriel Levitt, was first published in the popular Opinion/Controversy website – Opposing Views. We’re re-publishing the op-ed below.
Eleven years ago, an eighteen year old American named Ryan Haight tragically died from
an overdose of Vicodin, purchased online without a prescription. The Vicodin was real, not fake. In Niger, a much larger tragedy occurred – 2,500 people died out of 50,000 who were inoculated with bogus medication. The worst tragedy in recent U.S. history was the death of 238 Americans after ingesting fake Heparin found in the legal U.S. drug supply in 2007 and 2008. The Institute of Medicine reports that 100,000 Americans die each year due to prescription drug errors here in the USA.
What do all of these disparate and depressing statistics have in common? They have nothing to do with personal drug importation from properly credentialed online pharmacies. And yet opponents of safe importation insist that it is not safe, an assertion that runs contrary to the evidence.
A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, called “Unveiling
the Mystery of Online Pharmacies: an Audit Study,” shows that Americans who purchase
medicine from properly credentialed non-US online pharmacies receive genuine (not fake)
medication at much lower prices than U.S. pharmacies. In this study mystery purchases of
popular brand name drugs were tested for authenticity. All tested medications that were ordered from U.S. and non-U.S. websites approved by PharmacyChecker.com, National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, LegitScript.com, and the Canadian International Pharmacy Association were found to be authentic. Some non-credentialed website purchases failed testing.
A few weeks back Senator John McCain introduced an amendment to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) to facilitate personal drug importation from credentialed Canadian online pharmacies. Unfortunately, while the larger bill passed, McCain’s amendment failed 54-43. Even worse, though removed from the Senate version by unanimous consent, the House version of PDUFA, which passed with overwhelming support, contains a section – 805 – that authorizes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seize and destroy safely imported genuine medication valued at $2,000 or less. Since imported medication valued under $2,000 is for “personal use” the language was clearly aimed at destroying medication ordered internationally, often online, by individual Americans.
The putative goal of Section 805 is to protect Americans from counterfeit and dangerous drugs. In reality it will only hurt patients by blocking their ability to obtain affordable medication. Other parts of PDUFA contain forward thinking measures to protect us from counterfeit and substandard drugs, such as increasing penalties against drug counterfeiters, strengthening registration requirements on, and improving inspections of, foreign drug manufacturers. It also has provisions that could help bring needed pediatric medicines to market faster. But seizing and destroying safe personal imports will not help solve the counterfeit drug problem. Moreover, tens of millions of Americans don’t fill prescriptions each year due to the high cost of medication – 48 million in 2010 according to the Commonwealth Fund. Aggravating this public health crisis by destroying people’s prescription drug orders will result in more sickness, hospitalizations and death.
About a million Americans rely on safe non-US online pharmacies. If Section 805 is not
removed from PDUFA then DHS will seize and destroy safe prescription drug orders en
route to patients. That is medically unethical and a threat to public health. Section 805 must be removed from the final bill to avoid even more Americans going without needed medication.
First published here: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/health/conditions/eliminate-counterfeit-drugs-don-t-curb-access-safe-and-affordable-medication
Tagged with: avastin, Counterfeit Drugs, Gabriel Levitt, NBER, Opposing Views, PDUFA
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 13, 2012 | Drug Prices, Generic drugs, Online Pharmacies
Update: 7/17/2012
When we initially published this blog post, Dr. Stephen Barrett from pharmwatch.org had reported significant difficulties using the Plavix Choice Card program. Dr. Barrett subsequently communicated these problems to Bristol-Myers Squib and Sanofi. On July 13th, Dr. Barrett reported that the problems had been fixed and concluded that the program is now a great way to save money on Plavix. For more, see pharmwatch.org.
Buying Plavix at the cash price from your local pharmacy can run you about $2,500 per year! While the drug has recently gone off-patent and a generic version (clopidogrel) is available, the price of the first generic on the market is not much lower. Drug companies offer programs that purport to help Americans acquire the brand name version cheaply – Bristol-Meyers Squibb and Sanofi, the companies that market Plavix, offer the Plavix Choice Card Program. However, Dr. Stephen Barrett, a consumer advocate, recently tried using this program and found it unbelievably complicated – if not impossible – to use.
Dr. Stephen Barrett shares his Plavix Choice Card Program experience on his website Pharmwatch.org. We encourage you to read about it.
Another low-cost way to get this medication is through verified international online pharmacies. Below is a chart comparing prices from a local retail pharmacy in New York, a U.S. based online pharmacy, and from a pharmacy listed on PharmacyChecker.com. As you can see, the savings using an international online pharmacy is even greater (86% savings) than with the Plavix discount program (82% savings). What’s more, unlike the discount program, you don’t have to “qualify” to get the savings.
Drug Prices For 3-Month Supply of Plavix (75 mg)
|
Local Retail Pharmacy* |
U.S. Online Pharmacy** |
Plavix Card Discount Program |
International Online Pharmacy on PharmacyChecker.com |
| Price |
$634.00 |
$585.00 |
$111.00 |
$88.20 |
| Difference From Cash Price |
— |
$49.00 |
$523.00 |
$545.80 |
| Percent Savings |
— |
7.73% |
82.49% |
86.09% |
* Pharmacy in New York City, price collected 6/11/2011
**HealthWarehouse.com, price collected 6/11/2012
Tagged with: Drug Coupons, Pharmwatch.org, Plavix, Plavix Choice Card Program, Stephen Barrett
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 11, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Importation, Healthcare Reform
It’s unfortunate, but now documented, that President Obama, who initially supported personal drug importation as a policy to lower drug prices, changed direction as part of a deal to gain the pharmaceutical industry’s support for his larger health care initiative. The details came out last week, as described in a New York Times article “Obama Was Pushed by Drug Industry, E-Mails Suggest.”
We hope that President Obama will return to supporting personal drug importation as the problem of high drug prices persists and tens of millions of Americans are going without needed medication. Although not publicly supporting it, fortunately, the government’s longstanding policy is not to interfere with individuals getting prescription medications from abroad. You can get information on licensed pharmacies and their drug prices on PharmacyChecker.com.
There are legislative actions in the works that could lead to a more aggressive enforcement policy through which personally imported medication could be destroyed. Americans can stop this from happening. Take action through RxRights.org to tell your elected officials where you stand.
Tagged with: Big Pharma, Drug Importation, Emails, Healthcare Act, Obama
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 8, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Importation, FDA
The problem of Americans not taking medications is caused by high costs of prescription drugs, undesirable side-effects, health literacy, forgetfulness among other reasons. Medication non-adherence is a $317 billion problem. The U.S. Surgeon General and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a request to individuals and organizations to submit information about the national problem of medication adherence. Specifically, the government’s request presents “the opportunity to identify issues relevant to all levels of government, as well as individuals, health care providers, and industry and private organizations in efforts to improve medication adherence in adults with chronic conditions.”
Since cost is one of the critical factors inhibiting Americans from getting needed medication, we believe the government should take more proactive steps to provide useful information about how to obtain affordable medication online. Our analysis and recommendations are published below. For a PDF copy click here.
The Honorable Howard K. Koh, MD., M.P.H.
Assistant Secretary for Health
The Honorable Vice Admiral Regina M. Benjamin, M.D., M.B.A.
Surgeon General of the United States
Room 710-H
200 Independence Ave., SW
Washington DC 20201
Re: Request for Information on Prescription Medication Adherence
Submitter: Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com, 333 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, NY 10605. (718) 387-4526, Gabriel.levitt@pharmacychecker.com.
Prescription medication non-adherence should be treated as a national crisis since so many Americans suffer as a result. Some of the reasons for non-adherence are health literacy, psychological issues, side effects of medications, and lack of support systems. There are also tens of millions of Americans who simply can’t afford medication. A survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that 48 million Americans did not fill a prescription in 2010 due to high medication costs.[i] The data show the negative health and economic effects of non-adherence to prescription medication. First, it’s been reported that 121,000 people die each year due to prescription non-adherence.[ii] Second, according to the FDA, non-adherence to prescription medication costs the country $290 billion annually in additional health care costs.[iii] Third, numerous studies have shown that cost is either the number one reason, or a major factor for non-adherence. [iv]
Access to safe and affordable medication should be encouraged through all available sources, including personal drug importation. Over the past 15 years millions of Americans have obtained needed prescription drugs through non-U.S. online pharmacies, despite its technical illegality. Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not prosecute people for small quantities of personal drug imports.
The FDA discourages Americans from ordering from any non-U.S. online pharmacy, not because it’s illegal but for safety reasons. Its position is that the drugs ordered from Canadian and other foreign pharmacies are not regulated by the FDA, and are therefore unsafe. That position is simply unsubstantiated. Fortunately for people living in other countries there are other national regulatory authorities that regulate drugs to make sure they are safe and effective.
We’ve established that the problem of prescription medication adherence is so severe in large part due to high drug prices. If it is safe to order less expensive medication online that allows Americans to adhere to their doctor’s prescription then we should encourage their use. Are non-US online pharmacies safe?
The evidence shows that properly credentialed non-US online pharmacies which fill orders from licensed pharmacies, require a valid prescription, and provide verifiable contact information on their websites safely dispense genuine medication. The medication purchased for personal drug importation is often the same brand name product – from the same manufacturer – sold here but at a much lower price, often 80% less than U.S. pharmacies. A consumer is almost certain to receive proper care and safe medications from one that meets the aforementioned criteria and is certified in the PharmacyChecker.com Verification Program.[v] In fact, U.S. Government Accountability Office studies have shown the relative safety of Canadian online pharmacies compared to U.S. online pharmacies.[vi]
We recommend that the Secretary of Health and Human Services instruct the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to:
- Correct its website and consumer communications about online pharmacies to reflect the facts demonstrated by over a decade of studies and consumer experience. The FDA website should communicate that “if you decide to purchase medication online from Canada or another country then only use properly credentialed websites.”
- Explicitly allow, at least on a temporary basis, personal drug importation through properly credentialed non-US online pharmacies.
By taking these steps fewer Americans will go without needed prescription medication because it will be affordable. Moreover, more people taking prescribed medication will lead to fewer hospitalizations and emergency room visits, resulting in lower healthcare costs for the nation.
Sincerely,
Gabriel Levitt
Vice President
PharmacyChecker.com, LLC
[i] Commonwealth Fund:
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Surveys/2011/Mar/2010-Biennial-Health-Insurance-Survey.aspx.
[ii] Cut Copayments to Bolster Adherence”, The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, See http://www.cmpi.org/in-the-news/in-the-news/cut-drug-copayments-to-bolster-adherence/(last accessed July 27, 2011).
[iii] Campaign to Improve Poor Medication Adherence (U18), A Notice by the Food and Drug Administration on 03/09/2011, See http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/03/09/2011-5287/campaign-to-improve-poor-medication-adherence-u18#p-13, (last accessed July 27, 2011).
[iv] For more information see: http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/03/09/2011-5287/campaign-to-improve-poor-medication-adherence-u18; http://www.nclnet.org/images/PDF/adherence_focus_groups.pdf; http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2008-releases/poll-usa-today-kaiser-harvard-prescription-drugs.html (last accessed July 27, 2011)
[v] Bate, Roger, Ginger Zhe Jin and Aparna Mathur. “Unveiling the Mystery of Online Pharmacies: An Audit Studay”. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper #17655 (http://www.nber.org/papers/w17955.pdf). April 2012.
[vi] U.S. Government Accountability Office. Some Internet Pharmacies Pose Safety Risks For Consumers, GAO-04-820. Washington, DC. Government Accountability Office June 2004. See http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04820.pdf (last accessed June 26th, 2011).
