Website Helps You Pay Less For Prescriptions



We compare prices on airfare, hotels and gadgets, so why not do the same for prescription drugs. Now a new website called GoodRX lets you do just that.

Americans spend more than 300 billion dollars on prescription drugs, often just paying whatever the pharmacy charges for them.

Sharon Orrange, a USC physician said, "One in four patients don't fill their prescriptions due to cost. They don't know that they could be saving so much money."

Most of us just head to the same pharmacy over and over, usually having no idea how much the medication costs us until we get to the register.

"For consumers it has always been hard once the physician writes them the prescription, to be able to find where they can get their drugs cheapest," said Orrange.

A new website called Good Rx has compiled pricing information from seventy thousand pharmacies coast to coast.

"So a patient is now empowered on their own to take control. They get the prescription from their physician. They get to put the name of the drug in, where they live, and they get to look at the local pharmacies and compare prices."

Orrange also said, "a lot of patients are under the misconception that larger chains have the better pricing because they are big, but it's not necessarily  true."

Pop in the pill and your zipcode and you can get an instant rundown of prices and pharmacies which are sorted by strength, quantity, and even generic versus brand name prices.

The site also lets you know when special offers and coupons are available. Also available are answers to questions that you might pose to your doctor.

"They should be talking to physicians about generic options, options of pill cutting. You know, is the hundred milligram tablet the same price as the fifty milligram? They'll get twice as much for the same price."

Cheap prescriptions are now just a click away.

Sharon said, "In other words you have never been able to walk in with a paper prescription and go to five or six different pharmacies. And now you could do it in a snap."

GoodRX also has a mobile app so you can compare prices right after you go to the doctor and maybe even help you decide which pharmacy you're going to drive to. If you want to learn more, click here.