Have you ever received a prescription from your doctor
and had a pharmacist ask you to change to a generic when you went to fill the
prescription? Or how about this
experience: you have been receiving a
branded drug from a mail order pharmacy for many years and all of a sudden your
co-pay goes up by a factor of 5 or even 10, but a generic is less
expensive. What do you do?
Even more importantly, what if your doctor has told you
that there truly is a difference between the generic version of a medicine, or
medicine that a pharmacy wants to substitute, and the very specific medicine
your doctor has prescribed? How can you
get the medicine your doctor wants you to have?
The doctors at Skyvision, indeed all of the staff at Skyvision
Centers deal with this question every single day. A recent example is patients who have been on
a branded glaucoma medication who are switched to the generic of an older
medicine in the same class who then go on to have a very serious complication
in their retina, one that is a well-known complication of the older medicine,
but generally not seen with the branded medicine.
One interesting option has been presented to Skyvision
Centers. There is a company that will
set up an in-office mini-pharmacy to dispense the medication that your doctors
want you to take. What is interesting
about this particular service is that they make sure that any discounts,
coupons, or co-pay assistance is factored into the price of the medicine. In other words, any and all discount programs
available would be applied to your price.
There might still be a less expensive generic version of your
prescription, or a generic version of a similar prescription, but in those
instances where your doctor felt the branded medicine was a better choice for
you it would be made available with no “hassle factor”.
What are your feelings about doctors dispensing medicine
in the office? Would you find this more
convenient? What kinds of concerns might
you have? We would love to hear your
thoughts.
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