by Lucia Mueller, President, PharmacyChecker.com | Feb 16, 2018 | Drug Prices
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n it comes to getting your prescription medication for an affordable price, nothing compares to comparing prices. We talk about online, international options for prescription drug savings a lot. Americans use our site, PharmacyChecker.com, to find much lower prices available abroad for their prescribed medications. They also use us to find discount coupons for their local pharmacy.
After a disappointing visit to Walgreens, Garrick Feldman, editor in chief of the Arkansas Leader, did it the old-fashioned way by calling around his town. In doing so, he discovered how people are price-gouged by not only Big Pharma—but by their local pharmacies. His story is awesome. (more…)
Tagged with: CVS, Ofloxacin Otic, walgreens, Walmart
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Aug 25, 2017 | Drug Importation
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) says that foreign pharmacies who sell to Americans over the Internet, due to lack of regulation and counterfeit drugs, are dangerous. I have one question: Would that include their own pharmacies in the United Kingdom? After all, Internet pharmacy in the UK is regulated.
The NACDS is not an objective observer on this issue. As I see it, it is in cahoots with Big Pharma in sowing what is blatant misinformation about prescription drug importation and international online pharmacies. See myths and facts. For big U.S. pharmacy chains, lower prices from international pharmacies are a commercial threat.
One of NACDS’s principal members is most commonly referred to as Walgreens, but you should start calling it by the name of its main corporation, Walgreens-Boots Alliance. Why? In the United Kingdom, Boots has been in the pharmaceutical business for 165 years and is that country’s largest distributor of pharmacy products. You can bet that Walgreens-Boots is selling the same medication in the UK at a much lower cost than here in America.
For example, Januvia 100mg (sitagliptin), which treats type 2 diabetes, costs $1508.99 for 90 pills at Walgreens in Brooklyn (I just called). Compare that to $273.60, the price available online from a UK pharmacy, one verified by PharmacyChecker.com. That UK pharmacy is a lifeline of affordable medication to an uninsured American—of which there are still around 28 million—who is prescribed Januvia. (By the way, the “American” Januvia sold in Walgreens is made in the UK). (more…)
Tagged with: boots, NACDS, UK, walgreens
by PharmacyChecker.com | Oct 16, 2015 | Drug Prices
“Migraine” by Sasha Wolff from Grand Rapids – Can’t Concentrate: 14/365. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Dr. David Belk, a practicing physician in California, healthcare cost research guru and Huffington Post blogger, recently wrote a story about the huge difference in price faced by one of his patients when trying to fill a prescription for the migraine medication called Maxalt (rizatriptan). Since my daughter suffers from migraines, I know how debilitating migraine headache can be and how important it is to have the medication when you need it.
Essentially, Dr. Belk discovered that Walgreens, a big chain pharmacy, was charging much more money than another pharmacy – in this case Costco. The price for the generic at Walgreens without insurance was $1,490 for 40 pills, or $37 a pill, and even with insurance the price was almost $17 dollars a pill. But Dr. Belk’s patient ended up getting the medication at Costco for $1.03 per pill!!
Now ordinarily here’s where we’d write about how you might consider PharmacyChecker- verified international online pharmacies to purchase Maxalt or rizatriptin if you don’t have insurance – but you would not need to. According to Dr. Belk’s post, Costco’s price was the cash price! None of the online pharmacies in our program sell it for just over a buck a pill. It’s the cheapest in the U.S.A.!
A few months back, Tod Cooperman, MD, founder of PharmacyChecker.com was on Fox and Friends talking about another big chain pharmacy, one accused of overcharging consumers for generic medications. It seems that the problem is not just Big Pharma but Big Pharmacy.
Drug prices these days seem to be all over the place. The moral of this story: shop around as much as possible and don’t trust your friendly neighborhood chain pharmacy or assume that international online pharmacies are cheapest. I know it’s enough to give you a headache, even a migraine, but finding the lowest drug prices will help lessen the pain.
Tagged with: Dr. David Belk, Drug Prices, Huffington Post, maxalt, migraine, rizatriptan, Tod Cooperman, walgreens
n it comes to getting your prescription medication for an affordable price, nothing compares to comparing prices. We talk about online, international options for prescription drug savings a lot. Americans use our site, PharmacyChecker.com, to find much lower prices available abroad for their prescribed medications. They also use us to find discount coupons for their local pharmacy.
