Does she know about the Big Apple Rx discount card? https://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1198/bigapplerx-free-prescription-discount-card

Interesting to see a city prescription program of some kind. I wonder how it works.

Costco isn't always the cheapest option. My dog takes a human prescription drug in generic form. At the last refill point, I called the local Costco for a price - it was double what I pay for the same thing at CVS. Not a whole lot of money - $29 instead of $14 and change, but still surprising to me.

I would suggest calling around or looking on line to see what the particular medicine/s cost without insurance. The cost can vary widely within a small area. There are some "clubs" that offer discount coupons but she would have to ask the pharmacy that she uses which ones they accept and how to get it. While I get most of mine by mail order last time I had a cold several years ago the pharmacist was shocked at what the insurance company stated my copay was and provided me a discount card that lowered the cost.

Elmer, it was a Bloomberg initiative; here's the press release from 2011 about the program: https://www.mikebloomberg.com/news/nyc-launches-1st-official-free-prescription-discount-card-bigapplerx/

Double the price - that's significant!

Is GoodRX available in your area? I've had very good experience with that.

Both the State of Ohio and my county (Franklin) have offered prescription discount cards for quite a few years... the state since 2005. GoodRX has better discounts than either though ( so far for the meds my family has needed) and was much better out of pocket than the pharmacy benefit of my employer provided insurance.

But how does it work? Is it simply an agreement to apply a greater discount to prescriptions or is there some funding/cost sharing contribution by the city?

I was able to find this: "The program is run at no cost to the city. HealthTrans provides and distributes the cards, promotes the program, runs the Web site and offers customer service and data reporting. HealthTrans gets an administrative fee for each prescription that is filled using BigAppleRx."

Hmm. Does that mean not all pharmacies participate? The ones that do pay a fee as a referral fee, so pharmacies choose to participate as a way to get business from this market segment? That's interesting, a bit of the standard internet practice where the click/link source for a selling site is paid a commission or referral fee for the business done.

The card is "accepted at more than 2,000 NYC pharmacies, including all major chains and nearly all independent pharmacies." I suppose there are some independent ones that don't participate, but there aren't many of those left, alas.

costco has mail order

https://www.costcohealthsolutions.com/pages/Members_MailOrder.aspx#

Our PharmD often mentions med prices can change daily, or with every shipment.

Thank you all very much! I've passed this info on to her. I've learned something today too.

I forgot to mention, that GoodRx will show you all the prices for your particular med/dose/quantity from pharmacies in your area. They even show prices for pharmacies that don't have a GoodRx offer -- for example, for one of my meds, Walmart has the best price even without a GoodRx discount.

To be honest, I'm a little leery of Good Rx. I'm not sure what they do with your data, etc.... But thanks for the suggestion!