.png)
By Kyle McCormick, PharmD
“My insurance paid thousands for my other meds and now $5,000 per month for this one. What is the membership cost and why would I want to do this? How are you accredited or regulated? I currently get my drug through Accredo Specialty Pharmacy, how do I get this Rx transferred? Lots of questions, as scams are real these days.”
This was a real email exchange between a patient and me at Blueberry Pharmacy, our cost-plus pharmacy in Pittsburgh, PA.
My response was simple, “It’s crazy, because I almost feel it is easier to explain our model (acquisition cost + ~$3 member dispense fee) than it would be for Accredo execs to explain why someone should pay $5,000/mo for a drug that costs $33.” Not to mention, I’d be a pretty bad scammer if I’m only asking for $33 when the market rate for “scamming” is $5,000!
I get it though. We’re told time and time again that drugs are expensive. Good healthcare costs money. If you don’t go into medical debt then you’re probably not doing healthcare correctly in America. The truth is that so much of healthcare money — and by extension, pharmacy money — does not go to the provision of care; it goes to the middleman. Likely everyone reading this knows about the middlemen of pharmacy — it’s a very complex system:
It can be frustrating to explain over and over again that our drugs are not counterfeit; and that yes, we are a real pharmacy. A good 10 minutes was spent in the above interaction just outlining our model and providing assurance. Ten minutes that could have been spent counseling or reviewing their medication list — pharmacist patient care.
In pharmacy, we have signaled falsely high prices for decades. Currently, it is the transparent, fair-priced pharmacies needing to show evidence for how prices can be so affordable. But in the future, it will be traditional pharmacies answering for their unexplainably high Usual and Customary prices. Which group do you want to be a part of?
Schedule a call to learn more: www.costplusrxconsulting.com
