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.

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.”