Prescription Drugs - Medicine & Money
The truth about prescription drug costs.
Drug Dangers
- Prescription Drug Dangers
- Look Who's Making Decisions
- Re-Labeling
- Mail Order vs. Retail Debate
- Middlemen Win, The Patients Lose
- Mexican Drug Connection
[click here]Relabeling Drugs: Do you know where your medicine has been?
Let’s see. It’s manufactured under strict Federal Drug Administration guidelines in sterile surroundings. Then it goes to the drug warehouse for distribution to pharmacies--another business location closely monitored and regulated.
But what happens if your medicine takes a side trip to an unregulated location? Like the mailbox of someone who no longer takes that medicine, who never ordered that medicine in the first place, or perhaps died while the order was in transit. So the individual or his family return the medicine to the pharmacy benefit manager who sent it out in the first place.
Gee, that could get expensive for a pharmacy benefit manager! Pharmacy benefit managers make a lot of money by redirecting enrollees to the pharmacy benefit managers' mail order pharmacy and away from the local retail pharmacy. So what did one pharmacy benefit manager due to make up that financial loss?
Caremark, one of the Medicare Part D plans, repackaged and relabeled the returned drugs and sent them out to unsuspecting seniors and others enrolled in a health plan that uses Caremark as its pharmacy benefit manager. That’s according to whistleblower lawsuits filed in California and Florida by the employees who did the repackaging.
So, do you know where your medicine has been? You would if you bought it at your local pharmacy.