The insane price of prescriptions

[disneysteve]

Why can't be as simple as the drug company selling the product for a fixed price? In other words, a single pill is made available at single wholesale price. So any retail establishment can sell it for whatever price they want.

It doesn't work that way, though to be fair, neither do many other businesses. Not everyone pays the same price for the same product. Producers work out all kinds of deals with sellers based on sales volume and other factors. Why do you think WalMart can sell something cheaper than your local mom and pop store? Or why Amazon can sell it even cheaper than WalMart?

The situation with drugs is even more complicated because there are at least a couple of middlemen involved, namely distributors and insurance companies. There are also discounters like GoodRx or LowestMeds. And the manufacturers themselves are involved in pricing through coupons and patient assistance programs.

So even if the pharma company did sell their product for a fixed wholesale price, the price paid by the patient would still vary wildly due to a lot of factors beyond the control of the drug company.

[disneysteve]

Currently you can call 5 different pharmacies and get 5 different quotes and get 5 different prices, and then add in your drug insurance, you will get 5 more prices. It is so hard to comparison shop.

Plus, the price quotes you get today may be different from the quotes you got last month or the ones you'll get next month. Prices aren't fixed.

I have a drug contract that says I can only take pain meds prescribed by one doctor and have them filled at one pharmacy. So even if for some reason the price is $50 less elsewhere, I have to pay a higher price!

Or you could go to your doctor and tell him you are switching pharmacies and update your contract.

I used to put the "one pharmacy" wording in our drug contracts but thanks to the online state narcotics registries I took it out. It's a simple matter now to track where patients are getting their medicine and it's far harder for patients to cheat the system.