I was given the opportunity to review a printable discount card for prescription medication. The particular one I used was Medication Discount Card. I could not find a fuller name for this company so it may be confusing until you look at their website, since the name is quite simple/generic. This discount card claims it will save you up to 75% off of the cash price of your (or apparently your pet's) prescriptions. The card also does not expire.
Here is a link to the actual website:
click here for more info about this printable discount card
We have had Cigna Great West for about 4 years with my husband's company but recently they are switching things around and last week we lost insurance coverage as they will no longer provide insurance. So right now we have no insurance. It is quite scary especially with me being in my third trimester, expecting baby 2 in April.
My daughter is 3, and has had some bacterical sinus / bronchial infection for about a month. She was prescribed Amoxicillin Suspension 400/5ml to be taken at 1 1/2 tsp. twice a day for 10 days. I was worried about how she would handle taking it as she has never had any prescription medicine in her life. She has only had infant tylenol, and even then, only about twice. She was a breastfed baby until 20 months so stayed quite healthy as an infant.
The medicine was a bright pink, Peptol Bismol color and had a fruity smell. We have been giving her the doses in a sturdy medicine spoon that was given free with her medicine (love this spoon istead of using a medicine dosing syringe as we had previously with infant tylenol). Amazingly she said "mmm yummy pink!" after her first dose. That was a relief. Anyway...back to the review of the savings card.
We always go to Walgreens and so had this filled there. The medicine would have been about $5 if we had our Cigna Great West insurance still. The regular cost of this generic is $27.99 for a 10 day supply. I spoke briefly with the pharmacist at the counter and told her about how we are now without an insurance card and showed her my printed medicine discount card (it is a paper card--and if I continue using this card, I will definitely laminate it as it is just a paper card and not a thick glossy card like my Cigna one was). She said she has seen several versions of these free printable cards and I asked her if mine was better than others she has seen. She said many are similar and it really depends on the type of medicine(s) you are getting as to which card is best. She explained to me that Walgreens has their own savings card for prescriptions but it is a yearly cost of $35 per family or $20 per individual, and then the cost of the actual prescription. For our daughter's prescription, if we used a Walgreens savings card it would be $7.50. She said this medicine card is about that price.
She said for someone like us who rarely fills medicines in the pharmacy, this printed discount card would probably be a fine option so we would not have to pay a yearly fee. She looked at our account, and we only had 2 other prescriptions filled in the last year for our family of 3. I myself have been taking mainly prenatal vitamins for the past 4 years (before we tried to get pregnant, while I was pregnant, while I was breastfeeding and now currently). My prenatal vitamins (a set of prenatal with iron and dha) are over the counter and about $10-13 a month. Sometimes I find a coupon for $5-10 dollars off that which makes them very reasonable. Neither I nor my husband have ongoing prescriptions. As mentioned, our family of 3 filled only 2 prescriptions in the past year.
I would really like to have had insurance when walking into the pharmacy as that just helps make us feel more confident in pricing and overall calm our nerves about not having insurance for upcoming doctors visits and the hospital. This card is solely for medications and not for doctors visits, so may not be as beneficial to our particular family. We are hopefully going to get a reasonable insurance company soon. As of right now with my husband changing jobs and the new company not paying much if any, we are unsure what we will do. For now we will use this card as it does not have a yearly fee (like our local Walgreens).
Please note that this is not an insurance card and cannot be used to reduce your copay. This is a helpful card to use if you do not have insurance or for drugs/vitamins not covered by insurance. I want to mention that not every drug will be covered for a discount with this card. I am only speaking my experience with this one generic medication. Luckily our family does not have many prescriptions a year. For us, the big issue we need to take care of is paying for upcoming doctors and hospital visits.
click here for more info about this printable discount card
Please note, that there are numerous types of these online free discount prescription cards and that you need to select based on the medications you and your family use. I want to mention this particular website does have a list of medicines they include in their coverage. I am not sure if this is standard of other freebie discount cards, but I found it helpful and am sure others would as well. They also have a place to estimate the savings of a particular medicine as well.
click here for more info about looking up an estimated price or savings
click here for more info about checking to see if your medicine is listed with this card
I do think the card should have a more recognizable name, as when I spoke to the pharmacist lady, she was unsure which card it was until I was able to show her. The card does look similar to a regular insurance card as it does have the usual BIN, PCN, GROUP AND MEMBER ID numbers on it. I want to mention that with a regular card such as Humana, Cigna, AARP, or whatever it is, having a name other than "medical discount card" would be easier to explain to someone as to what company it is. (if that makes sense). An example would be something like "Smith's Discount Prescription Card" or something. (I just made that company up, as I am sure that is not a name of one, but am just trying to explain that it would be easier to know which card I was referring to if it had an actual name.)
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
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