What does that Prescription Really Cost?

My DH spent his entire career in travel IT. If you've tried to book a flight, hotel or cruise, you know the price of the trip varies depending on where you want to go, how far out you book, day of the week, or even which site you use to make your purchase. There is no objective standard, like say, so much per mile per seat. That would make too much sense.

It's sort of travel roulette.

Unfortunately, the same sort of thing goes on every time you go to the pharmacy. My doc said I had to up my dosage of a common blood pressure medicine this week. This is a maintenance med, so I asked for a 90 day prescription. It's more convenient than a 30 supply. When I took the script to my local Walmart, they told me this very common, generic drug would cost me over $70.00.

Then I whipped out my new insurance card. We ran out of COBRA in August and, while I don't miss the premiums that were large enough to buy a new refrigerator each month, I do miss the Cadillac coverage it offered. We now have a Silver level Obamacare plan with ridiculous deductibles, but I thought I'd see if it would do anything about this prescription. First off, according to my new insurance, I could only get a 30 day supply. Really? For a drug I'll likely be on for the rest of my life if I don't want to stroke out? The new price was $15 for 30 pills.

OK. $45 for 90 days worth is less than $71.

Then I remembered the GoodRX card in my purse.

"What if we use this?" I asked the long-suffering pharmacy tech.

She punched a button or two. "That'll be $17.00 for a 90 day supply."

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

I was glad to get a decent price, but it made me wonder why there should be such a discrepancy between paying out of pocket, using insurance, or a discount program. The drug is the same. Why is there a $54.00 difference? Where is that money going? Who benefits? Why is the insurance company stepping between me and my doctor by trying to dictate how many pills I can buy at one time?

I don't know if anyone can answer these questions and this is frankly one of the cheapest prescriptions among the drug cornucopia I take each day. $54.00 doesn't make such a big difference. But when a prescription starts out around $1700.00 out of pocket for a 30 day supply, these questions get huge.

Right now, I'm very thankful for GoodRX.