So I just got on my husband’s insurance plan after retiring. We both take the same drug everyday for HBP but his is twice the dosage mine is. The plan demands you order by mail if you want a 90 day scrip. So I go thru the process and get an email from CVS saying they got my scrip and the cost is 20x the cost of hubbies 90 day scrip. I’m sure there’s a mistake so I go to their online site, check it out and send them an email saying WTF over this must be a mistake, if not cancel the order. I checked and I could get the same scrip filled at walmart for only twice the price of hubbies “insurance” value priced deal.
So they never answered my email and shipped the drug yesterday anyway. CVS’s response when I called to tell them I was sending it back if and when I get it:
“You should have called and asked for the price first”…Who in their right mind would expect that 1/2 the dose would be 20x the cost? No one expects the pharmacy inquisition.
“You could have gone to a sticks and brick pharmacy and gotten it there and they would have told you the price”…But you can’t get a 90 day supply at the S and B, you can only get 30 days.
“We didn’t make a mistake so you can’t send the drug back unless we give you permission and none of us have the ability to give you permission because we didn’t make a mistake”!!!
I feel sooooooo happy that I have the best health care in the world.
I haven’t paid. I haven’t received the drugs yet, I’ve told them I won’t accept them when they do arrive, they said I would be billed anyway. The CVS customer service rep assured me yesterday I would get a call back today about the matter. No surprise to anyone…no call. Bastards.
There has to be more to it than this. There is no way they are charging you 20 times the price for only a change in the dosage (50mg vs 100mg, for example). Is your’s an extended release (XR) or something maybe?
Can you let us know exactly the the drug name and strength for each of you? I can actually look into this a little (I don’t work for CVS).
Yeah, they will. I’ve got a 90-day scrip for generic ranitidine 300 mg. No extended release, nothing special.
I can’t remember exactly what the cash price was before the insurance discount, but it was something approaching $400. My jaw dropped.
The post-discount price, obviously, is going to depend on how your insurance is set up. I’ve had flat-rate co-pays, tiered co-pays, percentage co-pays; it just depends on the company and the plan.
Of course it depends on your plan and employer and all that. But, I can’t imagine a formulary that has pricing set up the sets a copay for 100mg of a drug at $10 and the 50 mg version at $200 - if they are the same generic manufacturer and all that. There could be pricing differences, indeed, but 20X is not at all normal.
Sorry, not going to post the drug online. Not extended release, both his and mine are tablrts. I previousley got my scrpts thru my insurance. The last refill was about 2x his we figured that was because in all other repects his insurance was “better” than mine.
The cvs rep and his supervisor both said the price differential was based soley on the dosage. By the way this drug is available at wallmart in the dosage prescribed to me for 10 bucks for a 90 day supply or 1/4 the price they are charging me. It’s not like it will break the bank it just fuckinf infuriating.
According to the insurance website a 90 day mail order scrip costs 2/3 of 3-30 day scrips, so one 30 day scrip would be $41*1.5/3 = $20.50. So with my super duper insurance discount I would end up only paying 6x as much if I got 3-30 day scripts at cvs as I would at walmart (with no insurance) or 30x as much as my husband is paying. Or if I was a really savvy customer I could get my doc to double my dosage, cut the pills in half, and get a 180 day supply for only 4 bucks. :smack::smack::smack: The bullshit we have to go thru in this country astounds me.
But hey it’s the free market system it must be good. Fool me once shame on me…I will check every single script before getting it filled in the future. I will also never, ever buy anything else at any CVS store. Which is pretty funny because before I retired and moved I was a pretty loyal customer of CVS, buying my scripts from the stix and bricks even though it cost me more because I knew the pharmacists and they always helped me out. I hope the CVS corporate weenies enjoy the $38 bucks they may or may not squeeze out of me.
That sure is true. I tried to figure out the best prices for my prescriptions and it is mind boggling. 100 mg *tablets *might be cheaper than 50 mg ones, but it could be the reverse for capsules. Sometimes you are better off splitting a pill of a higher strength and other times it is cheaper to take two of a lower strength. Extended release versions of a prescription may or may not be more expensive than the regular version. The doctor dosen’t know the prices when he prescribes and the pharmacist is not allowed to substitute 200 25 mg pills for 100 50 mg ones. It’s a mess.
Oh, and it gets better. A colleague told me that the same drug is more expensive when prescribed for depression than when prescribed to stop smoking. I didn’t believe her, but I checked prices and it’s true.
Last January I had to leave town and attend to a family emergency. Luckily I went to CVS and was able to get my meds during my unplanned extended stay.
But then the following month I get a phone call from the same CVS 1000 miles away telling me that my meds were ready. My local CVS couldn’t fill my prescrips because CVS reports the “sale” to my insurance as soon as they send out their notice to pick it up. It took 24 hours and numerous calls to get my prescrips locally again.
The next three months this scene repeated.
Finally, in late spring I fired CVS and took my prescrips to my local supermarket pharmacy. Total monthly cost dropped to $35.
So, I get to kick myself for having overpayed $115 /month for CVS bad service.