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April 27, 2009

$10 Prescriptions Too Good to be True

Al Norman has a very interesting post up today at the Huffington Post. Apparently, a carload of illegal immigrants was pulled over for driving at an excessive speed (nearly 100 mph) while in the process of delivering $30,000 of unsealed pharmaceuticals of unknown origin to four Wal-Mart stores. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is touting its $4 and $10 prescriptions. I am not at all certain that I would feel comfortable taking prescriptions that were handled in this manner in today's age of terrorism, even if it did save me some money.

And whether or not the low-cost prescription plans actually save people money is yet another question. Just read what my mother wrote me about her experience with them:

I never buy things like that from WalMart. I don't buy them from Costco either. I don't trust Costco's Pharmacy. Because of my prescription insurance, I can only get 30 days worth of drugs at a time. One of them had a co-pay. All of a sudden, I'm getting a 90-day supply and the co-pay goes up. "Oh," the pharmacist said, "it's cheaper for you this way." The truth was, they were billing the insurance and collecting from me both--the 90-day was cheaper, but enough so that I was paying for the entire prescription. All of a sudden, about the time I was connecting the dots on this one, none of my prescriptions were covered. When I checked with the pharmacist, I was told that I was in the donut hole, the place where your coverage runs out before the major medical takes over. I went home and got my prescription insurance papers out. No, I was not in the donut hole. Costco was collecting from both of us. I called them and raised a fuss. They gave me my money back and let me keep the prescriptions, but I never went back. I've switched to Rite-Aid. It's here in town, they automatically re-fill and call me, and when the prescription runs out, they call my doctor. I have no co-pays anymore.

Such a deal!

Posted by Becky at April 27, 2009 11:22 AM