Pharmacy
In many industries, customer loyalty is essential to business and your local pharmacy is no different. Yet one major difference between one pharmacy and another is often price. Many people, especially people paying for prescriptions out of pocket, need to be aware of how much the price of one prescription may vary from one pharmacy to another. Beyond price, service is second to most consumers and price can sometimes be overlooked.
Most pharmacies can fill any prescription in under an hour. If your local pharmacy is telling you more often than not that they are out of a medication, you might want to look for better service. A well-stocked pharmacy is able to serve its customers in a timely fashion, otherwise we would all resort to mail-order or online ordering. For this reason, it gives you as the consumer the power to shop around.
If you are not filling prescriptions on a regular basis and only the occasional antibiotic or other short-term use medication, call three different pharmacies in your area and you may be surprised to learn that each pharmacy could vary in price. In fact, they could vary in price by as much as $10 to $20 or more on the same prescription. This can equate to considerable savings if you pay cash for each of your prescriptions and fill even two or three each year.
Be sure to check prices with at least two or three different pharmacies for each prescription as well. The pharmacy that was cheapest the first time, may not be the cheapest on a different prescription. This is especially true with varying brands of antibiotics.
If you are taking long-term prescription medication, you may be better off checking with your prescription plan for mail order policies. Similarly, if you must pay cash for your prescription medication because you have no prescription coverage, check with your local pharmacies about any rebates or discounts that may apply and be sure to ask if they match prices for repeat customers.
Disclaimer: Cliff Schaffer does not personally endorse or support any of the comments made within the writings of this article.
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