First off, I’m not shilling for Amazon, this was just such a surprise I thought I’d share. I know I’ve seen a thread or two about drug prices over the years, hopefully this can help somebody.
I was helping out a friend of ours who was trying to find a new Medicare prescription plan, preferably a mail order one since she doesn’t get around so well in winter.
I’d read about Amazon Pharmacy so I went to it thru her Amazon account. All I had to do was enter her medications and her doctors info. One day later, the info was verified and she was ready to go.
The prices were unreal! She’s on 4 meds for heart disease and cholesterol. All were fractions of what she could get from her pharmacy. One was regular $47 a month, Amazon price was $7.59. Another was $154 for three months, Amazon was $51 for six months. All 4 meds were like that. The only one she couldn’t save big on was an inhaler for asthma.
P.S. I think I mentioned this before, but if you are on disability, Medicaid or food stamps, Amazon will discount your subscription price. Instead of paying $12.99 month/$119 every year, I believe they let you pay $7 a month. I read about that a year or so back, so prices may be different now.
This are not costly prescriptions, and are most likely generics. Costly prescriptions start with your car payment, move up to your house payment–and end up at ten or twenty thousand dollars a month and on up.
But it is certainly complicated minimizing drug costs via your drug plan which has deductibles and copays, standard and preferred pharmacies, a mail order pharmacy, vs paying cash at Amazon, Walmart, Costco, and other places, GoodRX and similar coupons, manufacturers coupons.
Note one downside of paying cash is that your payments don’t count against your insurance plan deductible.
Amazon does take insurance, at least Medicare Part D in this case.
I won’t name what meds I checked, since they were for someone else. But Amazon beat three out of four of these for prices when I was checking different sites for her. The fourth was $2 different. If she did her math right, she’s saving almost $300 a month. That’s no small thing when you are living on Social Security.
You definitely should, there are some real savings in these options.
It’s definitely a “your mileage may vary” thing. I just checked on something that I pay cash for at Costco as my insurance won’t cover it even as a generic, and Amazon was about ten bucks a month more.
Yep, I didn’t think Amazon would be lowest on everything. One of her meds was a couple of bucks more on Amazon but it seemed easier for her to keep all her stuff at one place.
I was surprised at the Amazon program because I had never seen or heard any advertising for it. If I hadn’t seen a mention in a news article, I never would have known to look there.
Wow. Their quoted price is about 8x less than we would have had to pay under previous pharmacy delivery when my insurance provider was switched to a company that sounds kind of like Shitna. I don’t mean to worship at the Shrine of the Bezos, but I’ll have to check it out, thanks.
Actually, I think that was the company she had. She paid more in cash every month than what Shitna paid plus the monthly fee she paid them for Medicare part D.
I got to say I’m not looking forward to trying to figure out Medicare in a few years. It seems to be even more messed up than regular healthcare plans.
I was dissatisfied with my Medicare Advantage plan, so this year i consulted an insurance broker who represents several insurance companies. He gave a very good presentation of the pros and cons of the various options, and i chose one that not only had better benefits, but was cheaper.
Doing your own Medicare is like doing your own taxes. Dizzying.
They don’t allow it by choice, they are required by law to allow non-members to access their pharmacy. Same with CostCo or any other membership warehouse.