If you’re one of the more than 250 million Americans who have health insurance and wonder if you’ve ever overpaid for your prescription drug because of what are called prescription clawbacks, chances are you have.
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics found that insurance co-pays are more expensive than the out-of-pocket cash price of the drug about 25% of the time.
That holds true on generics (28% of the time) and brand drugs (9%) alike, including all medications on the list of the 20 most frequently prescribed drugs. For example, if you’ve purchased Amoxicillin to treat your child’s ear infection, there’s over a 35% chance you paid too much. Have you ever bought Prednisone to help with a stubborn case of poison ivy? There’s about a 50% possibility you were overcharged.
What are prescription drug clawbacks?
Clawbacks are prescription drug overpayments resulting from insured patients’ co-payment amounts that exceed the total actual retail cost of the prescription medication. Usually, the PBM (Pharmacy Benefits Manager) reaps the profits from these overpayments, and it’s all perfectly legal.
The USC study revealed that nine of the 20 most frequently prescribed medications were subject to overpayments more than 40% of the time! But those aren’t even the worst offenders. Like the blood pressure medicine Norvasc or the popular sleep aid Ambien, some drugs are marked up nearly 60% of the time.
Odds are someone, just like you, is getting ripped off at the pharmacy counter every single day to the tune of a collective $135 million in overpayments (yes, million!) each year. Clawbacks from prescription drugs are very lucrative but at your expense.
Rising Costs of Prescription Drugs
And the problem has the potential to get exponentially more expensive. In 2018, nearly 30 drug companies announced price increases in January of the following year. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer alone raised the price of 41 drugs. And we’ve all read about the dramatic increase in life-saving medications like insulin and epinephrine.
While sticker shock at the pharmacy counter certainly stings; the rising price of prescription drugs costs us much more than our hard-earned money. In some cases, it’s affecting our health. A 2018 poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 24% of all respondents reported that they or a family member had cut pills in half, skipped doses, or not filled a prescription at all because of the inflated price tag.
That means, for instance, that the tens of millions of Americans who suffer from chronic conditions like high cholesterol, diabetes, or high blood pressure are purposely putting their health in danger because they can’t afford the drugs they need—even when they have insurance.
Rising Costs of Health Insurance Premiums
And the cost of prescription drugs is one of the main drivers of health insurance premiums, too. When drug prices go up, so do insurance premiums, which leaves most of us paying more for coverage and more at the pharmacy counter. Ouch!
Politicians on Capitol Hill have been trying to solve the prescription drug pricing crisis for years—and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight. Fortunately, there is one thing you can do today to start saving on your prescription medications—and it won’t cost you a dime.
myRxMedSaver Prescription Discount Program
Go to the Get myRxMedSaver tab and get the prescription discount program your way. myRxMedSaver is free and accepted at more than 35,000 pharmacies. And there’s no waiting period. So go ahead and use it today and start saving upwards of 80% on all your prescriptions.
Getting the best price on your prescriptions has never been easier.
Use one of our online pricing engines for real-time price comparisons and coupons for an exact prescription at pharmacies near you. First, select the best-suited pricing engine for you. Then, print out or text yourself the appropriate discount coupon to present at your chosen pharmacy.
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- Co-pay Challenge (pricing engine) for those with insurance.
- Retail Pricing Engine for those without insurance.
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If you prefer a general use discount card, we have those available in print and digital form. Just show one of them to your pharmacist to price your prescription while you’re at the store.
If you’re an app user, we have one of those too.
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- Download our myRxMedSaver app and show its self-contained general use discount card to your pharmacist to obtain an in-store prescription price.
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When the cash price is less than your co-pay, pay cash and pocket the difference! myRxMedSaver even works on pet medications, too, and the discount never expires.
myRxMedSaver has helped thousands of people—with and without insurance—save millions of dollars in prescription costs.
So what are you waiting for? Get myRxMedSaver now and never overpay for your prescriptions again.
