Pharmacy filling 3 month prescription 1 month at at time.

[Eva_Luna]

@hajario

This has been my experience too which indicates to me that the insurance companies prefer that we use mail order. It must be much less expensive for them. I prefer to use mail order anyway for the convenience but I can certainly understand why you don’t.

A friend of mine takes Advair, which is a maintenance med for most people. But she only needs it for a month or two in the fall when her allergies make her asthma flare up. But her insurance policy requires her to fill 90 days at a time via mail order. So every year, she ends up with wasted Advair because it expires.

[ZipperJJ]

My insurance company always refuses to give me birth control pills 3 months at a time, even though my prescription is written that way. On the pharmacy website it says I have 4 refills left even though i have 12 (after 3 months, I have 3 refills left, etc).

No idea how this benefits The insurance company. Maybe so I don’t decide to get pregnant one day and sell the other two packs? Who knows.

[Napier]

I have this problem too, due to the insurance company.

But I was amazed to discover that the co-pay with insurance is actually higher than the cost I pay if I don’t use insurance, for several of my meds. So I told the pharmacist to charge me as if I had no insurance, for those particular prescriptions. It is much cheaper this way, even if I ignore the extra cost of 8 extra trips to the drug store every year.

[wolfpup]

@elbows

2. Most provinces have a drug benefit for seniors, where they get all their meds (over the first $100 yrly) paid in full. Those meds are always one month refills with a $2 dispensing fee, (which most pharmacies waive to draw business!) I’m pretty sure it’s because older people change meds more often and there is less wastage on the public dime. I believe after a full year you can switch to 90 day refills though if you ask.

No, they don’t have to be monthly. I’m on the drug plan in Ontario and last December I got a prescription for various medications for one year. The first batch was dispensed for 30 days, and thereafter all the drugs were dispensed in 3-month quantities. I didn’t even have to ask. It’s nice because it not only minimizes my trips to the drugstore, but it cuts my cost since the only thing I pay for is the fixed dispensing fee which is a few bucks per drug per refill. On the downside, nobody offered to waive dispensing fees, not that it amounts to a hill of beans. What they did do is offer automatic refills when things come due, so I just get a call that they’re ready for pickup.

[md2000]

I remember a presentation a few years ago from our large company on saving money on the prescription benefit. (Canadian health care is great, but does not cover medical prescriptions except when administered in a hospital as part of your stay/treatment.)

They came to the recommendation that for ongoing medicines, the first prescription should be 1 month; and thereafter, 3 months at a time.

Logic was: the first month, most people find out whether the medicine as prescribed does the job, has adverse side effects, etc. If after a month they and their doctor decide it works and they will keep taking it, they dispense 3 months at a time. If not, only 1 month or less has been wasted. In Canada, and I assume same in the USA, each dispensing includes a dispensing fee in addition to the cost of the drug. So the pharmacy giving you a 3-month supply in 3 separate refills is getting 3 dispensing fees instead of 1. Not sure what that fee is, but IIRC for each drug it was almost $10. So probably not illegal, but if you or the insurance company are not paying attention, the pharmacy is making an extra $20 off you each 3 months. Our insurance company put in the 3-month thing to save on dispensing fees.

My blood pressure meds for example specifically say “100 pills, 3 refills”. (i.e. 400 pills total) A year later or so, I get a new checkup and a new prescription.So I suppose the pharmacist could give me 33 and make me come back 3x3 times, but… that’s not what the doctor ordered.

I would suggest you read the prescription (that’s the hard part… since it’s doctor handwritten). If the doctor said “X pills” and “Y refills” that’s how many pills you should get and how many times you go back before getting a new prescription. If he did specify a month’s supply, ask him next time why 30 days instead of 90 days. I can’t imagine, once you are definitely taking that medicine, why he would need it to be dispensed monthly - unless he’s in cahoots with the pharmacist .

[hajario]

@Napier

I have this problem too, due to the insurance company.

But I was amazed to discover that the co-pay with insurance is actually higher than the cost I pay if I don’t use insurance, for several of my meds. So I told the pharmacist to charge me as if I had no insurance, for those particular prescriptions. It is much cheaper this way, even if I ignore the extra cost of 8 extra trips to the drug store every year.

I had forgotten all about having that same experience in the time before I had the mail order option. It was actually cheaper to buy the meds outright plus I could get three months instead of one. One pharmacist refused to believe me that it was cheaper without insurance and made me wait for fifteen minutes while he looked it up.