Multiple Pharmacies: a Prescription for Disaster

Today’s post is a bit different . . . focusing on a wrong way to save money on your prescriptions. When attempting to cut prescription costs, many people begin using more than one pharmacy. They may switch one of their prescriptions over to a pharmacy with a lower price or maybe even transfer a prescription in order to obtain a reward like a store coupon or gas card. While switching prescriptions to different pharmacies like this makes sense to most people, it can actually be exceptionally dangerous.

Most people don’t really understand what a pharmacist does, but one of the most important functions a pharmacist has is to make sure your medications don’t interact negatively with each other. Many medications can have adverse effects when you take them together, and some combinations of medications can even be deadly. While dangerous combinations like this become even more likely if you see more than one doctor, mistakes can still happen with two or more prescriptions from the same physician.

I’m always amazed at just how many people incorrectly assume that pharmacists know what prescriptions their patients have filled at other pharmacies. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, most stores within the same chain of pharmacies don’t even know what prescriptions other stores within their chain have filled. Because of this, your entire profile of medications can only truly be screened by a pharmacist if you have every prescription filled at the same place.

Here are a couple of examples of how using more than one pharmacy can be dangerous:

1. “Sandy” has always used the same pharmacy, and is on several medications. One of these medications is warfarin, a drug used to prevent blood clots. Several months ago, she discovered that warfarin is on Wal-Mart’s $4.00 generic list, and had her doctor call a new prescription to Wal-Mart’s pharmacy. Then one Saturday, Sandy starts to feel sick and visits an immediate care clinic where she receives a prescription for an antibiotic. When she takes this new prescription to her regular pharmacy, the pharmacist notices that this antibiotic has a potentially deadly interaction with warfarin. However, Sandy hasn’t had warfarin filled in over six months, so the pharmacist pays no attention to this. Sandy goes home with the new antibiotic prescription unaware that it may kill her.
2. After a checkup with his doctor, “Fred” receives a new prescription for an antidepressant. Fred doesn’t have insurance and calls his regular pharmacy to find out how much this medication will cost. After finding out the price Fred calls a few other drug stores, locating one that has the same medication for about $10 less. Because the pharmacist at this new pharmacy has no idea what other medications he takes, no one will tell Fred that he’s already on a similar prescription. The additive effects of both of these medications could possibly kill him. Even if he’s not harmed, however, Fred will have likely wasted his money on the new prescription . . . because it probably won’t provide him with any benefit over the antidepressant he already takes.

Don’t misconstrue my advice to say that you should never shop for a better price on your prescriptions. Comparison shopping can result in huge savings—especially if you don’t have insurance. Also, I’m not trying to say that you should never switch pharmacies. I’m a big proponent of finding the best pharmacy possible. You just REALLY shouldn’t continually use more than one pharmacy. Instead, here are a few ideas you can use to safely take advantage of lower prices and transfer rewards from other pharmacies:

• Ask your current pharmacy to price match: Many pharmacies have a policy that they’ll match the prices of others . . . but you have to bring it up.
• Determine which pharmacy has the lowest collective price for ALL of your prescriptions: Most people fail to take the total costs of their prescriptions into consideration when trying to find the least expensive pharmacy. After doing so, don’t forget to also ask about price matching on individual prescriptions.
• Transfer for a reward, and then transfer back: If you’re interested in transferring a prescription in order to receive some type of reward (such as a gift card), there’s nothing wrong with this. However, if you’re not going to switch all of your medications over to this new pharmacy, just transfer the prescription back after you fill it. While this may sound deceptive, it’s a risk pharmacies are willing to take when they implement such transfer programs.