Saving on Prescription Drugs While on Medicare
If you are on Medicare, you probably spend an average of $581 per year, out-of-pocket on your prescription drugs, over and above your Part B premiums and any Medicare Advantage, Medigap, or prescription drug plan premiums that you pay. For some, it can be much more.
87% of adults aged 65-79 use prescription drugs, and the average number prescribed per person is 20.
How can you save? Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D plans are required to provide a mail-order pharmacy option. When you use mail order, you are avoiding a retail pharmacy, prices are generally somewhat lower than in-person pharmacy service, but not always: it depends on the plan and the drug in question.
If you compare the full retail pharmacy price, using a discount card like GoodRx versus the mail-order cost, you may occasionally find that using the discount card is cheaper.
Another option has recently become available…
Billionaire Mark Cuban has started a mail-order pharmacy called CostPlusDrugs.com. Around 100 generic medications are available from this site, all at cost plus a 15% markup. You may find that the price from this site, assuming your drug is available, is far less than the mail-order price with your Medicare Advantage or prescription drug plan. New drugs will be added each month. At present, the plan is to offer only generics, but this may change. You can check if a generic is available for your prescription drug by asking your doctor’s office or googling “generic for name-of-prescription drug.” Currently, CostPlusDrugs.com does not accept insurance to keep administrative costs down. This may change in the future.
If you are considering ordering from other mail-order pharmacies, Blink Health has been rated best, it accepts most insurances and is available 24/7. Blink has most drugs available in addition to generics.
More than ever now, it pays to shop around for your prescriptions, as it true with so much else.