Complaint Review: People Prescription Plan

This report is in response to some of the comments I have seen regarding the Peoples Prescription Plan. I am a pharmacist and deal with this plan on a daily basis. I receive no compensation for my comments, I just thought I would try to give an objective explanation of the plan.

Personally as a pharmacist I don't really like dealing with "discount cards", but in some instances they are helpful for the patient. I have seen comments that it's a rip-off as well as praises from other patients. There is a good reason for this. These type of plans have a formula to figure the price of the medication.

The formula uses the AWP (average wholesale price) of the medication minus a percentage. In some cases this will save the patient money in others it will not. The patient will pay either the discounted price of the phamracy's everyday price whichever is less. Will you save money? This can depend on whether or not the pharmacy has really low prices to begin with. For instance if you received a medication that the pharmacy charges $101.00 for but it cost the pharmacy $99.00 to buy it chances are you will not get much of a discount even though it is an expensive medication.

Believe it or not there is such great competition in some areas of the country that many times the usual and customary price may only be a few dollars above the pharacies actual cost. That is one reason discounts are often not seen.

I have seen instances where there were no savings, a few pennies savings, and sometimes a savings of ten dollars or more. The bad part is there is really no way for the patient to know before they get the card whether it will save them money. The only way the pharmacy will know the price with the card is to actually have the card and run a prescription through the computer because the price is sent back electronically to the pharmacy from the people prescription plan.

Overall opinion. It's worth trying for a month if your on several medications.