Your Pharmacy Is Probably Overcharging You
Here’s how to save money (and not get ripped off)
About a month and a half ago, Jane*, a woman in her twenties, entered a Manhattan drugstore whose brand would be familiar to most Americans. She went to the pharmacy to pick up two prescriptions her doctor had sent in. One was for a new form of birth control, and while Jane was shocked to hear it would cost her $50, she nevertheless paid for it. For the other prescription, she was initially quoted a price of $80 — but it was her lucky day, the pharmacy staffer told her: A coupon he found behind the counter would reduce that price to $18. (*Jane is a pseudonym for privacy reasons, Elemental has confirmed the story.)
When Jane called her doctor to ask for a more wallet-friendly birth control going forward, she learned the pharmacy had not filled the prescription her doctor sent; it had instead substituted a different brand-name medication with the same active ingredients. She could have gotten that medication for $13 instead of $50 if she’d known to use a GoodRx pharmacy discount card. And if the pharmacy had simply filled the prescription the doctor had written, her birth control would have been free.
Fuming, she returned to the pharmacy to request an explanation and a refund. The explanation she got only made her feel worse: Everything the…
