Guides – Page 2 – TheFrugalPharmacist

Walgreens fills over 2 billion prescriptions a year and is one of the top two major chain pharmacies in the country. With over 9500 locations nationwide there is likely a Walgreens located near you. I contacted my pharmacist colleagues that work at Walgreens and surveyed them to find out what prescription discount card provides the lowest prices for medication at Walgreens pharmacy. As I expected from my experience working at a national chain pharmacy, the answer wasn't perfectly clear. The best prescription discount card to use at Walgreens depends on the medication, strength, and quantity your prescription is written for. One card my fellow pharmacists suggest trying first is Singlecare. Keep reading to find out why. Considering the enormous prescription volume Walgreens pharmacy processes each year you would think they would be able to offer the lowest prices available for prescription medications. The opposite is true! If you ask for their cash price for most medications you will find they have some of the highest usual and customary pricing. This is due to how they maximize the companies profits and is mostly due to how they contract with insurance companies. I'll explain that in detail in another post. Why is Singlecare the best pharmacy discount card to try first at Walgreens?B Singlecare has cut out the middleman PBM businesses and negotiates directly with its network of pharmacies including Walgreens. This reduced expense means lower prices can be negotiated for you. I explain why this is a big deal in "How do Prescription Discount Cards Work". Make sure to download the Singlecare app or check out their prescription pricing tool for your prescription whether you have insurance of not because chances are the Singlecare price will be your copay most of the time. Singlecare has recently started a promotion with Walgreens where you can save an additional $5 off your prescription the first time your use your Singlecare card at Walgreens. This may be a time-limited promotion so make sure you take advantage of it while it still going. Singlecare has negotiated extremely discounted prices on almost 50,000 FDA approved medications and actively works with pharmacies to lower prices on the most commonly prescribed drugs to ensure they are affordable to you. If you want even more details read my full in-depth review of Singlecare. Other pharmacy savings card options The Walgreens pharmacists I surveyed mentioned one other pharmacy discount card that tends to have very low prices for common medications. The prescription discount card is RxCut. After researching this rx savings card a little more I did find that the prices are very good. The only real draw back is that RxCut does not have a mobile app. You will have to use a browser to access the site and their pricing tool. The pricing tool is a little cumbersome to use but it does have the capability of adding multiple prescriptions and getting the best price for all of them combined. That is a feature that is not available on any other rx savings card pricing tool that I'm aware of. Make sure to check out my other recommended prescription discount cards to see which one offers the best price on your medication(s). How do you use a prescription discount card at Walgreens? To use a prescription discount card at any pharmacy the process is the same. Show the billing codes from the card, website, or app to the pharmacy technician to add to your pharmacy profile.If you have insurance ask the technician to use the discount card to see if the price is cheaper than your copay. If you are paying out of pocket then ask them to use the discount card to lower the price.Pay the discounted price at the register and go home happy Walgreens Prescription Savings Club Walgreens also has its own prescription discount program called the Prescription Savings Club. It offers discounts on 8000 medications and some of the prices are better than what I've found using discount cards. The problem is there's a catch. Walgreens charges a fee to purchase your membership . This is a tactic used to make up for the discounted prices and force your to stay loyal to them since you purchased the membership. The price is $20 for an individual and $35 for a family including pets for a 1 year membership. This may be worth it for some individuals so if you want more details you can find them here. Hate high prices AND long lines? Are you interested in getting your medications at an extremely low price AND delivered free to your door? Read my review of Blink Health and get the details.