Florida Web Sites Compare Drug Prices
By Phil Galewitz, The Palm Beach Post, Fla.
Dec. 1–Want to save money on prescription drugs?
Shop around.
Sounds simple, yet few consumers usually do when buying medicines.
Two Web sites launched this year by two of Florida’s top government officials help consumers compare prices for commonly bought drugs from local pharmacies using their computer. The sites — myfloridarx.com and flseniors.net/ prescriptiondrugs — show how prescription-drug prices can vary dramatically within the same town and even among the same pharmacy chain.
In West Palm Beach, the price of a one-month supply of 70-milligram Fosamax for osteoporosis varies from $59.98 at Wal-Mart’s Belvedere Road store to $81.59 at the CVS Pharmacy at 6800 S. Dixie Highway.
In Stuart, the price of a one-month supply of 40-milligram Nexium for acid reflux varies from $133.77 at Wal-Mart on Federal Highway to $160.49 at the Prescription Shop of Stuart on Colorado Avenue.
“Anything that can help people be better consumers is a good thing,” said Kathy Marma, a spokesman for the AARP Florida. She said AARP has tried for years to get its members to comparison shop for brand-name prescription drugs and ask if a cheaper generic drug is available.
At the Area Agency on Aging’s Palm Beach, Treasure Coast Medicare Answers Prescription Savings Center in West Palm Beach, coordinator Lisa Nora was wowed when she used the Web sites for the first time on Wednesday to check on her own asthma medication. “This is great,” she said. Within seconds, she saw how the price of the same medicine varied by $15 among Jupiter pharmacies.
The two state-sponsored Web sites were launched separately by Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist and Florida Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher. Both men, who are running for governor, took data that was already being collected monthly by the state Agency for Health Care Administration for the state Medicaid program and put it online. The agency gets pricing data from pharmacies for the 50 most commonly sold brand-name drugs in Florida. The sites allow visitors to search the counties and cities of their choice for prices on specific medications.
Not every pharmacy reports prices for every drug because the medicine may not be a big seller at that store.
The prices quoted on the Web sites are the retail prices that people without insurance coverage or other discounts pay. People who have insurance generally pay a price their insurer negotiates with the pharmacies.
Even with the start of the Medicare prescription-drug benefit plans on Jan. 1, many seniors who sign up will still find a need to comparison shop. That’s because many plans will not provide any prescription coverage after spending $2,250 a year on drugs and before catastrophic coverage begins once a senior pays $5,100 annually for drugs. Also, not all Medicare drug plans will cover all medicines, and some plans will require members to pay a percentage of drug costs.
One disadvantage of buying drugs from whatever pharmacy has the the lowest price is that you won’t have one pharmacy to keep track of all your medications and prevent dangerous drug interactions, said Michael Jackson, executive vice president of the Florida Pharmacy Association, which represents pharmacists statewide. He also cautioned the drug prices can change every day, so the prices on the Web sites may not be accurate.
Pricing information on both sites is updated monthly. A sampling of prices checked Wednesday showed that most of the prices listed on the Web sites were the same as those at the pharmacies.
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