Severe Prescription Overpricing at Walgreens

This is how the chains pay for their $4 generic programs. If you get a
drug not on thge program you will be price gouged. I am a pharmacist
that works for an independent and I could not sleep at night if I had
to do that. I had a prescription brought to me for generic zofran that
walmart told the customer $1100. My price for the exact same thing was
$60 and we still made a decent profit on it. Watch your wallet!!

I find it interesting you didn't find the price outrageous as long as
your insurance company was paying the exorbitant cost, but when YOU
had to foot the bill, well that's different.

As the consumer it is your responsibility to shop around for the
lowest price, and in doing so will help keep insurance costs down.

If you don't want to pay an exorbitant cost, neither does the
insurance company.

Healthcare is a SCAM! If you don't have insurance (and sometimes even
if you do have insurance) you are SCREWED!

CVS and Walgreens make most of their money from insurance companies.
They have no incentive to offer low cost drugs to people without
insurance. Grocery Stores and Warehouse Clubs do it because they
don't make a lot of money from their pharmacies. They only have them
to get you into the store. They are deisgned to LOSE money.

I have a friend who is a Target Pharmacist. On average they fill
about 20-25 prescriptions per day. He makes over $100,000 per year and
there is usually a pharmacy technician staffed at all times too. His
pahrmacy loses money but it doesn't matter to Target. They make up
for it other areas.

Walgreens is horrible. I prefer CVS. Bigger selection, lower prices,
and great customer service.

Hmmm. Safeway, the most expensive store on earth, charges only $10 for
the same medication? It must be a generic.

Maybe they will lower their price if people stop buying it... but
until then, they can charge what they want.

Like other posters have said, it sounds like they have similar drugs
for less. You may want to check with your Dr.

According to Walgreens
website(https://webapp.walgreens.com/MYWCARDWeb/servlet/walgreens.wcar
d.proxy.WCardInternetProxy/RxSavingsRH?#), they do have a Prescription
Savings Club for $20 for individuals/$35 for family and pets for a
year. According to their drug pricing tool, a quantity of 90
Simvastatin is $51.97. Factor in the price of the discount card, the
total would've been $71.97 which is a savings of $95.03 from the
original price. It seems some generics are covered at $12 but others
aren't. While Simvastatin is not $12, other Cholesterol meds such as
Lovastatin and Pravastatin are $12.

I guess they're able to get away with selling their medication at the
prices they do because people are willing to pay those prices. My
grandmother chooses to go to Walgreens for all of her medications
because they're all linked up which means it's easier for her to get
refills when she's traveling in Illinois, Indiana and Texas. She
doesn't have to worry about insurance problems, drug interaction
problems as she's on quite a few medications and when you fill at
different chains, it's VERY easy to run into a drug interaction if the
pharmacist is not aware of ALL the medication's you're on and she
likes the fact that all of her prescription needs and medical
information is in one place which makes it easier for her.

With that said, getting mad at the pharmacist about the price of the
medication is a moot point. Pharmacists do not set the prices.
Corporate does so there's no point in shooting the messenger.

If I had to guess, I would say that Safeway is doing something similar
to what Walmart is doing. They probably have a list of drugs for
several different types of conditions. Those drugs are typically $4
for a 30 day supply or $10 for a 90 day supply.

I don't know how they are able to do this. My guess is that by
bringing you in their door, they know you will likely shop their and
will probably bring all your prescriptions to them in the future. I
don't blame you in the least for going there and paying the severely
reduced rate.

I don't think that paying ~$55 a month for potentially life-saving
medicine is too much at all. How cheap should it be?

And Safeway was going to charge you $10 for three months of this
medicine? I find that extremely difficult to believe.