We Asked Our Grooviest Intern to Give Us an Unbiased Assessment…

Turns out, she had it in for us.

Our yoga-loving, organic eating, never-takes-medicine-ever intern was skeptical about our program’s efficiency. Being the martyrs that we are, we asked her to play devil’s advocate and see how our product and service stacked up against the competition.  

After reading America’s Most Popular Drugs according to Forbes magazine (May 11, 2010), she was set to the task of researching the average cost of the top ten drugs on that list, comparing and contrasting across-the-board pricing for people with and without insurance. While cost varies tremendously from place to place, we wanted an educated estimate for each.

At first, she returned triumphantly and announced that there were online drug companies that sold name-brand equivalent medications for less than what we could offer – no prescription needed and no questions asked. She also located some very nice resources in Canada.

But when asked, “What can you tell us about the quality control and integrity of a company selling prescription drugs without a doctor’s consent?” and “So, how much did those non-FDA-approved meds go for – with shipping – from Canada?” She came up a little empty.

To be fair, she dutifully went back to the drawing board, this time, only using trustworthy (and accessible) pharmacies such as Walgreens, CVS, Walmart and Rite Aid – places where we wouldn’t have to question if those medications were what the advertiser said they were.

Here’s a sample of what she found:

Crestor (high cholesterol)                            10mg                     $69 per month / 30 (quantity)

Diovan (HBP)                                             80 mg                    $80 / 30

Effexor XR (depression)                              75 mg                    $92 / 30

Actos (diabetes)                                         30 mg                    $61 / 30

Nexium (GERD)                                          40 mg                    $215 / 30             

Premarin (estrogen)                                   1.25 mg                  $58 / 30                               

Lipitor (cholesterol)                                     10 mg                    $84 / 30                               

Synthroid (hormone)                                   20 mcg                  $41 / 30                                                               

Tricor (cholesterol)                                      145 mg                  $45 / 30               

Micardis (HBP)                                            40 mg                    $104/ 30

We then plugged those names and quantities into our EquivaMeds database, here’s what we discovered:

Crestor Equivalent drug                              $15.80 per month / $640 annual savings

Diovan Equivalent drug                              $7 / $875

Effexor XR Equivalent drug                         $55 / $444                                                                           

Actos Equivalent drug                                 $12 / $587

Nexium Equivalent drug                              $147 / $808        

Premerin Equivalent drug                            $6 / $635                             

Lipitor Equivalent drug                                $18 / $575                           

Synthroid Equivalent drug                            $11 / $352                                                           

Tricor Equivalent drug                                  $14 / $373           

Micardis Equivalent drug                               $8 / $1156

With an average savings of nearly $645 per year, even our groovy intern had to admit that we were on to something.

First, the one-two punch that brought us down…

The December 2007 recession contributed to a dramatic rise in unemployment in the United States, leaving many people without benefits and – as a result – proper medical care. Floridians were hit particularly hard as the state went from a 3.8% to a 12% rate of unemployment over the last decade. Combine that with the BP oil spill on April 20, 2011 and you’ve got declining incomes in the Southern United States due to lack of tourism – the prime economic-boosting industry in the state. In short, those that were working, were working harder for less money.

Meanwhile, the health care industry is faced with an increase in chronic conditions among adults – partially due to individuals lacking the ability to afford preventative care – resulting in greater spending by employers trying to cover the ongoing costs in the form of benefits.

With both insured and uninsured Floridians being unable to take preventative steps in their own health and well-being, this lack of care eventually translates into more doctor’s visits, hospitalization and an overall increase in both physical problems and medical costs – Costs which could have been prevented had that patient been able to get the prescription drugs that they needed before the problem escalated.

Making a comeback in the fifth round…

What people may not know is that from 1999-2005, America saw a drop in the cost of prescriptions due to generic drugs being introduced on the market and insurance companies offering tiered co-pays. Our overall spending went from 18% to 6%.

Then, In 2006, that rate went back up to 9% due to designer drugs and better medications to replace those with potentially harmful long-term side-effects. More expensive, yes, but still better overall because now we have the potential of more effective, generic drugs available at a fraction of the cost.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, approximately 80% of drugs currently have a generic equivalent. If that’s the case, why aren’t we using them?

This brings us back to what we’ve been saying all along – the BetterRxCard discount drug program provides an alternative to high-cost drugs, and Equivameds can help find the generic equivalent to otherwise expensive designer medications. Now, employers, the insured and the uninsured can afford benefits that include better quality preventative drugs.

Reduced Spending = Preventative Care = Healthier Floridians

See the trend?

For anyone that is familiar with our EquivaMeds service over the past 3+ years, you know we quote from Kaiser Family Foundation quite a bit. I find their research and analysis on health care issues to be fair and pretty illuminating at times.

Each year they put out new research on the state of health insurance in America; how many have it or do not, where people get it from, broken down by policy type, how much you pay, co-pay, coinsurance, yadda yadda yadda.

And if you follow this and other stories out there you see co-pay costs going up each year. It started about 10 or so years ago, remember? Back then we all had three tier formularies that started at $5 or $10 and grew to maybe $30.

The something called “cost shifting” came to play and you saw those numbers go up and the difference between tiers grow wider. For our insurance this year, that means a $20 tier 1, $50 tier 2 and, gulp, $70 tier 3.  Not to mention that there are more exclusions on our formulary than ever before. What’s an exclusion? Believe me, you will be hearing more and more about them going forward.

This is why we build EquivaMeds years ago, to try to find options, and why we rolled out BetterRxCard last year.  But in the interest of providing a valuable resource and not just a marketing blog, I wanted to bring your attention to this article from Lisa Zamosky. It emphasizes some of the things I’ve tweeted and may have blogged on in the past, but goes beyond by talking about PAP programs and a useful web site to help get a handle on drug pricing.

Enjoy.

I saw this article (well, it's more of a response from one pharmacist, an owner/operator) and thought it provided some good perspective on the challenges of co-pays. 

Here, the pharmacist talks about how they are helpless to do much about charging you less than the copay for the drug your doctor prescribed. And he's right.  The pharmacy can get in trouble if they try to deviate in any way from what the rules are as laid out by the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) and/or the "payer" (your insurance company basically).

Okay, so what do you do about high copays?  You can complain to your benefits person at your company. While they may empathize, there is probably little they can do about it.

The better way would be to work with your doctor to see if there is another drug on your formulary that would work just as well for you, but cost less. You can go out and research this on websites, take notes, then find out how much the new drug costs and if it is on your formulary at all.  The next time you are in the doctor’s office you can strike up that conversation and see where it goes.

Or you can try a service like EquivaMeds, the option we've added to the BetterRxCard discount drug program.  EquivaMeds does all this for you, typically providing multiple options for your doctor to consider.  This information is new to your physician since they don't know how much drugs cost or what you pay for them at the pharmacy.

So eureka!  You and your doctor now both have access to new information you didn't have before, and it all takes about 3 minutes. Risk free?  Yeah, pretty much, since the service won't charge you anything unless it can first save you at least $120/year. And with the BetterRxCard, you can save 75% off the one-time fee of $19.95 if you choose to; like I said, it's an option.

Frankly, I think any pharmacist would love to have something like this to provide to patients.  It would be a nice option for their customers and would save the pharmacist, physician, and customer time and money. That makes it a win/win/win!

http://www.consumerfederationse.com/news09_12_15.shtml

 Here is an interesting tool that anyone in the southeast, or around the county, could use to help stop drug switching, which happens at the pharmacy by (my gues is, although not stated in the article) your health plan or pharmacy benefit manager (PBM).

That's not to say that switching to a drug that's less expensive but works just as well isn't a good idea. Our company provides a service (EquivaMeds) that does just that. The main difference is that you the consumer is in control of making the switch, not your PBM or insurance provider.  EquivaMeds helps you become a better consumer by showing you the options and then (and this is important) helping you talk with your doctor to see if they believe a switch is right for you.

You see, doctors know about all these drug options, but they certainly don't know about what you pay, so EquivaMeds helps you through that process in less than 5 minutes.

Okay, enough of the self-promoting, but if you want to try EquivaMeds for free, drop us a note and we'll get you a free account. Also, you can do the EquivaMeds process yourself through research of drug options, pricing and then documenting to provide to your doctor.