walmart $4/$10 drug list

[Icarus]

I took another look at this, and I think I'm going to move my 5 regular prescriptions to WalMart. All 5 of them are on the $4/30 day, $10/90 day list, and currently I am paying more than that for my co-pays at the local place. They are all fairly cheap, but nowhere near as cheap as $10 for a 90 day supply.

The $4/$10 thing as I understand it is the full price. isn't it?

WalMart is not as convenient as the local place, but I will get my doctor to write the 90 day scripts so I only have to do one refill every 3 months for all of them.

What am I missing? It seems like this is easier, no insurance hassles, etc.

-David

 

[dioxide45]

I took another look at this, and I think I'm going to move my 5 regular prescriptions to Walmart. All 5 of them are on the $4/30 day, $10/90 day list, and currently I am paying more than that for my co-pays at the local place. They are all fairly cheap, but nowhere near as cheap as $10 for a 90 day supply.

The $4/$10 thing as I understand it is the full price. isn't it?

Walmart is not as convenient as the local place, but I will get my doctor to write the 90 day scripts so I only have to do one refill every 3 months for all of them.

What am I missing? It seems like this is easier, no insurance hassles, etc.

-David

Correct, no insurance hassles. If you get the 30 day scripts for $4 they will still try to run it through insurance (if you have it) and see if they will pay out something. Many insurance plans won't cover 90 day retail scripts so they have to always run those through as cash (no insurance involved).

We use the local Target store since they have similar if not the same $4/$10 lists and the Target for us is easier to get in and out of quickly. This is a great deal. Unfortunately I take one ongoing med that I must purchase through mail order via my insurance plan. I wish they offered a generic.

 

[isisdave]

And check your local supermarket and the chain drug store lists. I found one of my meds on K-mart's $5 list, but no others.

 

[applegirl]

We don't have prescription coverage on our crappy health insurance plan, so the price of scrips is a big deal. Recently we needed to get a steroidal skin cream for our daughter's eczema condition and we usually go to Walgreens (because they have a drive through pharmacy and I have two young kids). At Walgreens the cream was $106. With the Walgreens discount Rx card it was $80. Still a lot of money for a cream. So I called Walmart to see what their price was and they said it was $50. Then when I picked up the Rx I asked about a discount card (didn't know if they had one or not) and that brought the cost down to $23!!!!!!!!!

So at Walgreens without any discount I could have paid $106 (and I had never been told about a discount card before so who knows how much money we have overpaid on Rx for the past several years). At Walmart with the discount card I paid $23.

How can this be?!?! Doesn't seem right that some people are paying more than 4X what they could be paying for any Rx.

I compared prices of another scrip for my daughter that was like $45 at Walgreens and it was only a few dollars cheaper at Wal-mart. Go figure.

From now on I am shopping around for the prices of Rx for our family. A little more trouble, yes, but in this economy drive thru Rx service is not worth $84!!!!!

Janna

 

[MULTIZ321]

WalMart $4 Prescription List


Richard

 

[SDKath]

WalMart $4 Prescription List


Richard

So I just looked at this list and really this is not all that great. Most of the antibiotics are very old, basic penicillin or first generation cephalosporins, which are no longer used often due to significant resistance (ie amox and keflex). The cholesterol drugs are the 2 weakest statins that usually don't do much for people's cholesterols unless they are just borderline elevated.

The diabetes drugs are also quite old and many endocrinologists think that the use of those classes of meds actually accelerates diabetes by burning out the pancreas.

So in short, unless you are actively using one of these meds for a good reason, I would not change over all your prescriptions simply because of this list.

FYI our local drug store is offering a similar set of drugs for FREE.

I bet 99.99% of people are really not using any of these meds anymore, mostly because of their lack of efficacy, resistance or side effects....

Just my 2c.

Katherine

 

[Icarus]

The diabetes drugs are also quite old and many endocrinologists think that the use of those classes of meds actually accelerates diabetes by burning out the pancreas.

what?

The drugs on the list are all very commonly used, generic drugs. You aren't going to find the newest name brand drugs on a list of $4 prescriptions. Did you expect to? They are cheap because they are generic, and these large companies buy them in enough volume they can arrange discount pricing on them. That's why they are cheap.

Are you a doctor? Where did you get that specific information from and which diabetes drugs are you referring to? there are several different diabetes drugs on the list. Metformin isn't safe and effective? I thought it was.

Can you cite specifics about the free medication program you mentioned? Is that free for everybody? What is the catch? Or are you saying that those drugs are all so bad, they are giving them away for free?

-David

 

[Icarus]

zombieland is on the list, so ...

 

[Kozman]

Sam's Club has the same list as Wal Mart if I recall. In MI, Kroger also has a similar list of $4/10 drugs. It makes one wonder how they can do it so cheaply. Or, do they do it to just get you in the store and hope you will continue to shop there?

Unfortunately, one of the generic drugs they sell didn't work well for me so I had to go back on the brand name. Dang!!!

 

[Cathyb]

icarus: I think Kath is a cardiologist.

 

[dioxide45]

We don't have prescription coverage on our crappy health insurance plan, so the price of scrips is a big deal. Recently we needed to get a steroidal skin cream for our daughter's eczema condition and we usually go to Walgreens (because they have a drive through pharmacy and I have two young kids). At Walgreens the cream was $106. With the Walgreens discount Rx card it was $80. Still a lot of money for a cream. So I called Walmart to see what their price was and they said it was $50. Then when I picked up the Rx I asked about a discount card (didn't know if they had one or not) and that brought the cost down to $23!!!!!!!!!

So at Walgreens without any discount I could have paid $106 (and I had never been told about a discount card before so who knows how much money we have overpaid on Rx for the past several years). At Walmart with the discount card I paid $23.

How can this be?!?! Doesn't seem right that some people are paying more than 4X what they could be paying for any Rx.

I compared prices of another scrip for my daughter that was like $45 at Walgreens and it was only a few dollars cheaper at Wal-mart. Go figure.

From now on I am shopping around for the prices of Rx for our family. A little more trouble, yes, but in this economy drive thru Rx service is not worth $84!!!!!

Janna

There was a recent article in the news about this. How the local drug store prices were so much higher than the superstores. Walgreen defended it as the convenience they offer.

Sam's Club has the same list as Wal Mart if I recall. In MI, Kroger also has a similar list of $4/10 drugs. It makes one wonder how they can do it so cheaply. Or, do they do it to just get you in the store and hope you will continue to shop there?

Unfortunately, one of the generic drugs they sell didn't work well for me so I had to go back on the brand name. Dang!!!

It is a bit of both. The drugs they sell are not real expensive for them to buy. They also use it perhaps as a loss leader/break even sale to get people in the store to buy other things. There is also a better chance you will buy those brand name drugs with them that are not on the list. You won't want to go to different stores to get everything you need.

 

[lbertera]

I take two of the $10/90 day drugs. I purchase my other from Canada at 1/3 of the price that it is in the US. Before I did the change I talked to my doctor and she directed my decisions. We lost our prescription coverage and I needed to cut the cost of prescription drugs. For the one time use drugs, I usually go to Costco pharmacy that has great prices.

 

[thheath]

Drug List

This is the lastest list from the Walmart.com site:

http://i.walmartimages.com/i/if/hmp/fusion/customer_list.pdf

 

[Icarus]

icarus: I think Kath is a cardiologist.

ok, but I'd really like to know if there's a problem with the meds I'm taking. I didn't think there was.

I picked up the one script I needed. It came in a weird pack, like a sheet of 30 pills in a flat plastic thing. You push a tab and slide the captive sheet out. Then you push a pill out through the sheet.

The plastic thing has a picture of the pill, the name/dosage of the medication, etc. The other side of the plastic thing has the prescription label on it.

I guess that minimizes their handling of the medication? At the Foodland pharmacy, it was a traditional bottle of pills, that they had to dispense and count.

-David

 

[normab]

To David--weird packaging info

Yes the unusual packaging is basically required to do generic business with Walmart, as it pretty much eliminates need for add'l headcount and mitigates errors in dispensing. Bottom line is to save $$$ so WalMart can beat everyone else's prices.

I only know this because I work for a pharmaceutical compnay that is working on this type of packaging so we can do business with WalMart (we have a generic line with several meds in it).

Norma

 

[SDKath]

I just looked over the larger list that thheath posted from Walmart. Much better selection of meds there. Our local Stater Brothers is doing the $4/$10 program with coupons for $4 off in the paper each Thursday.... Almost the identical list to Walmart's.

As for the medications, many of the meds are subpar to what is standard of care these days. For example, atenolol has largely been replaced by Toprol XL as it is much more efficacious as a BP agent. An article about 2 years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine showed this to be the case. Note how Toprol XL is not on the list. Metoprolol tartrate is, which is the twice a day version of Toprol XL. It too has been shown to be inferior to Toprol XL in BP and heart rate control (because it's a 12 hour drug so it has more peaks/troughs and wears off more often).

Interestingly, even though there is now a generic version of Toprol XL (metoprolol succinate), it is not on anyone's list. Why? Because demand is high and companies don't want to sell it for so little. Same with Norvasc (amlodipine). It is a superb BP med and is generic but is not on the list.

Of the cholesterol drugs, the 2 listed are the 2 olders and weakest of the statins. Zocor (simvastatin) is notably absent from this program even though it went generic 18 months ago.

Of the diabetes meds, metformin is probably one of the only ones used currently with good success. The rest of those meds are often switched out because of the insulin resistance issue I mentioned above. Of the antibiotics, most are useless against current pneumonias/sinusitis/skin infections/ear infections... As a matter of fact Pen V is only used for one thing now -- Mono.

There are of course some great generic drugs that are on the list (furosemide, lisinopril, some steroids and steroid creams....). These were not on the original list but with the expanded one, I think it will bring a lot of costs down for people on those meds.

But yes, in general, most of the older/cheaper generics are subpar to the newer, more advanced versions of meds. Like new computers and cameras, drugs come on the market with a tweak/improvement that either gets rid of certain side effects (read amiodarone's side effects -- thyroid/liver/lung dysfunction vs the new Multaq which has none of those terrible problems) or proves to be stronger/more efficacious than their older cousins (pravastatin versus Crestor).

Best bet is to always ask lots of questions when you are at the doctor's. Or call and leave a message to make sure what you are on is a good medicine, not just one that was started 10 years ago and never changed...

Katherine

 

[Icarus]

Kath: Thanks for the updated info. I had no idea Richard posted a link to an out of date or abbreviated list. You mentioned two of my drugs as good. One as a bit outdated. I will ask my doctor about that one.

normab: thanks for the reply. What does the 3 month supply look like? Three of those sheets in a fatter plastic thing?

-David

 

[normab]

Sorry for not replying sooner, but I don't have an answer!

They may limit the chronic medicines to 30 day packs. (Since some people may not want the 90 days at once, and 3 of those packs are easily dispensed together.)

 

[laurac260]

There's women's health, but no men's health...?

Thanks for posting these lists. Didn't see anything on here that we use, but I will keep it in mind for reference whenever a new rx is prescribed. Noticed there's no men's health category, wonder why?

As a side note, here in the Cincinnati suburbs, regular flu vaccines are almost non existent now. Fortunately we got ours early. Anyone else find this to be true in your area yet?

 

[isisdave]

SoCal groceries offer free antibiotic Rxs

Of the cholesterol drugs, the 2 listed are the 2 olders and weakest of the statins. Zocor (simvastatin) is notably absent from this program even though it went generic 18 months ago.

Simvastatin is the med I found on Kmart's list but no other.

Recently, here in SoCal, Stater Brothers grocery started offering some free antibiotics. Other stores jumped on the wagon.

The Stater Bros. offer covers a two-week supply of 38 different doses of eight antibiotics, including generic versions of often-prescribed pharmaceuticals such as ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, penicillin and bactrim. Refills are also free.

Typically, 24 of the doses are available for $4 each at most mass retailer and supermarket pharmacies, including Stater Bros., but more than a third of the 38 are more expensive.

Here's the list. Sometimes this direct link fails; if so, start at www.staterbros.com, select Departments, Pharmacy, etc.

 

[dougp26364]

Correct, no insurance hassles. If you get the 30 day scripts for $4 they will still try to run it through insurance (if you have it) and see if they will pay out something. Many insurance plans won't cover 90 day retail scripts so they have to always run those through as cash (no insurance involved).

We use the local Target store since they have similar if not the same $4/$10 lists and the Target for us is easier to get in and out of quickly. This is a great deal. Unfortunately I take one ongoing med that I must purchase through mail order via my insurance plan. I wish they offered a generic.

Check with your provider about being forced to use the mail order pharmacy. In many cases, they only make it sound as if you must use them. Ours does a good job of trying to scare people that way. Most will pay for scripts at a local pharmacy but, you'll pay a premium to do it. In our case we pay 20% more to use our local pharmacy and we can only get 30 days worth of my wife's meds.

Still, I'd rather pick up her meds from our local pharmacy rather than having her meds sit in the mailbox in the hot summer sun or freezing in the middle of winter until I can get them out. That can't be good on her meds.

 

[dioxide45]

Check with your provider about being forced to use the mail order pharmacy. In many cases, they only make it sound as if you must use them. Ours does a good job of trying to scare people that way. Most will pay for scripts at a local pharmacy but, you'll pay a premium to do it. In our case we pay 20% more to use our local pharmacy and we can only get 30 days worth of my wife's meds.

Still, I'd rather pick up her meds from our local pharmacy rather than having her meds sit in the mailbox in the hot summer sun or freezing in the middle of winter until I can get them out. That can't be good on her meds.

We have tried, if we try to get a 30 day script refilled at the retail pharmacy, they won't fill it through insurance. We could pay cash but no insurance reimbursement.