Carepoint pharmacy ??

[savannahsmiles]

My dermatologist recently gave me an Rx ointment for a pre-cancerous area on my face - well she gave me a piece of paper with Carepoint's info on it (the dr office called it in there and didn't ask who my usual pharmacy is).

My health insurance doesn't cover this Rx.  I looked it up on goodrx.com and the best price near me is $1,228 with free coupon!!

So then I get a call/text from Carepoint telling me the request has been processed, my insurance doesn't cover it, so it's $60 and they'll mail it to me.

What is going on here??  The yelp reviews are alarming.

[waverly]

No idea, but I agree the reviews are alarming. I would call your doctor and ask them to send it to your regular pharmacy or have Your pharmacy see if they can transfer it.

Sounds like docs get kick backs. I mean if you have to pay $1200 obviously not but I wonder about that part too.

[cricketintx]

I am not not not an expert, although I'm basically a professional dermatological patient at this point in my life. In the past 18 months, my dermatologists office has started using special mail-order pharmacies (the specific one he calls most of my prescriptions in to is all dermatological).

My copay is always ridiculously less than whatever the regular drug store quoted. Today I picked up a medicine that was supposed to be $75 with a coupon, but they had a different coupon that made it a $0 copay.

In my case, the "mail order" pharmacy was a 15 minute drive from my house, so I feel like shipping is a waste of resources and I just drive and pick it up. They're a real place, with staff and a knowledgeable pharmacist. I'm 100% comfortable using them, and actually quite prefer them to my chain drug store pharmacy now.

YMMV, of course, and I don't know about Carepoint. But in general, mail order dermatological pharmacies are becoming a thing, so they aren't *all* shady.

[scout8]

Are the yelp reviews service related or something else? If service related, I would just deal. If your choice is $60 versus $1200, then I'm not sure there's much to do.

[FrozenSunshine]

I’ve had a fine experience with them in the past. My insurance wouldn’t cover a cream that worked best for me even with my dermatologist jumping through hoops of approval. She sent it to Carepoint, and similar situation, my $800 cream was now $30, out of pocket. Unfortunately a year later it wasn’t as much but carepoint then wanted $500.

[1yeartogo]

Not speaking from experience, but is carepoint considered a “specialty pharmacy”? If so this medicine might need to be filled by a specialty pharmacy which would explain the huge cost discrepancy. It would also make sense about the high cost and using the coupon to reduce the cost. Typically coupons for specialty meds occur when they are super high cost, no good alternative med exists, and no generic. These coupons are usually only for people with commercial insurance (not Medicaid/Medicare) and will have a limit on the # of times it can be used (3,6,9,12 times) after which you can’t use the coupon.

[savannahsmiles]

Thanks everyone...still waiting for my $60 Rx to arrive. I'm going to ask my derm more about it when I go for my follow-up.