SteveinMN
12-26-19, 10:24pm
So after having seen the TV ad for GoodRx several times over the past months, I got interested in how this is supposed to work. Which led me to the discovery that there are many programs out there designed to offer discounts, primarily to those without prescription coverage as part of their health insurance. Tonight I tested a few of them and I just signed up for one: Blink Health.
Blink was started about three years ago by a bunch of big-time tech alumni. While several of the programs (GoodRx, Scriptly, etc.) work on negotiating discounts with various pharmacies through volume, Blink has chosen to circumvent the Prescription Benefit Manager system and works with several thousand retail pharmacies across the country -- but not Walgreens or CVS. I entered the long-term prescriptions I'm taking and their prices (for admittedly generic-type drugs; I don't need anything super-expensive or fancy) came to half of what we pay the mail-order pharmacy coordinated by our medical insurance. And we can either get the medications mailed to us or pick them up (for maybe 10-20% more) at a local pharmacy (including the one I already use for non-longterm medications).
I've looked for a catch -- like my medical history becoming part of someone's marketing effort or past data breaches that have exposed massive amounts of data to the world or annual operating losses that show that the approach doesn't work. Haven't found any of those yet, though I'll keep digging. If drugs through these folks are cheaper than insurance, I don't need to go through insurance.
So has anyone here tried one of these services? Experiences good/bad/indifferent?
Blink was started about three years ago by a bunch of big-time tech alumni. While several of the programs (GoodRx, Scriptly, etc.) work on negotiating discounts with various pharmacies through volume, Blink has chosen to circumvent the Prescription Benefit Manager system and works with several thousand retail pharmacies across the country -- but not Walgreens or CVS. I entered the long-term prescriptions I'm taking and their prices (for admittedly generic-type drugs; I don't need anything super-expensive or fancy) came to half of what we pay the mail-order pharmacy coordinated by our medical insurance. And we can either get the medications mailed to us or pick them up (for maybe 10-20% more) at a local pharmacy (including the one I already use for non-longterm medications).
I've looked for a catch -- like my medical history becoming part of someone's marketing effort or past data breaches that have exposed massive amounts of data to the world or annual operating losses that show that the approach doesn't work. Haven't found any of those yet, though I'll keep digging. If drugs through these folks are cheaper than insurance, I don't need to go through insurance.
So has anyone here tried one of these services? Experiences good/bad/indifferent?