Fw: Prescription Drug Costs!

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wtpatltotrtf

Sunday, April 18, 2004 10:52 AM

Prescription Drug Costs!

 

 

Presto4701

 

Sunday, April 18, 2004 10:46 AM

Re: Prescription Drug Costs!

The report on Prescription Drug Costs is absolute nonsense. The costs posted are not store costs but manufacturer's bulk chemical costs at inception. There is no evidence supporting these store cost claims.I am an attorney and pharmacist and I detest the Pharmaceutical manufacturers as much as anybody. Placing the blame on the retail pharmacist is an outrageous distortion of the facts.Pharmacists are reimbursed a dispensing fee added to their net cost of the medications to them. This fee is typically no more that $4.00 to $6.00 per prescription filled. Out of this fee the Pharmacist pays overhead, bottles, labels, computer billing costs etc. Pharmacists are not paid a percentage mark up. In other words if the actual drug cost to the pharmacist is 50 cents as it is for some very inexpensive generics such as penicillin VK the prescription will sell for anywhere from $4.50 to $6.50 for a course of treatment. This may be perceived as a mark up of 1200 percent but it's really a professional fee on top of the cost of the drugOn the other hand if one is prescribed an expansive branded antibiotic the cost to the pharmacist may be as much as $5.00 a tablet. So the pharmacist here would charge $50.00 for ten tablets plus a $6.00 dispensing fee for a total of $56.00 and a percentage mark up of less than 12%. I can't think of any business that can survive on a mark up of 12%. For example the retaling industry typically markups their goods of 100 to 200 %. The Restaurant and liquor industries have mark ups of 200 to 500%It is in the independent pharmacist's best interest as well as the consumers to sell lesser costing drugs. The pharmacist gets a better return on his investment in inventory (which typically runs well over $100,000 in the RX department). It is a fact that the average percentage mark up in the prescription drug business is well under 30% overall. The local pharmacist is not the enemy but a victim just like the rest of the American people of the rampant greed of the pharmaceutical, and insurance industries. In fact many insurance companies get paid more to process that Rx insurance claim than the Pharmacist receives for filling the prescription. Your insurance companies then sell that information back to the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the government for all sorts of marketing ploys and privacy invasions.End pharmaceutical care is the best health care value Americans' receive. Pharmacists now have doctorates and at least 6-7 years of professional education. Their vast knowledge is available without charge to anybody who walks into their pharmacy and requests it. Try walking into an attorneys office (far less professional education and in my experience not as intelligent as pharmacists) and see if they will advise you repeatedly for free.Elsebeth Baumgartner, Pharm.D.; J.D.The OutLawyer TMFraud and Legal InvestigatorBiotechnology Consultant