Archive for the ‘Prescription Drug Savings’ Category

Retiring soon? Have $240,000 saved for health care costs?

Posted by on May 9th, 2012

Are you and your spouse looking at leaving the rat race and retiring in the next year or so? If so, you might want to have $240,000 saved up just to cover your health care expenses in retirement, according to a new estimate by Fidelity Investments. This represents a 4 percent increase from last year, when the estimate was $230,000, and it’s not expected to drop anytime soon with health care costs and prescription drug costs rising faster than the average rate of inflation. This years 4 percent increase is modest, since annual increases in the Fidelity estimates have averaged over 6 percent since they began their retirement health cost calculation in 2002.

The study is based on projections for a 65-year-old couple retiring this year with Medicare coverage. The estimate factors in the federal program’s premiums, co-payments and deductibles, as well as out-of-pocket prescription costs. The study assumes the couple does not have insurance from their former employers, and a life expectancy of 85 for women and 82 for men. The estimate doesn’t factor in most dental services, or long-term care, such as the cost of living in a nursing home, which would add hundreds of thousands of dollars more onto the expected costs.

These large numbers illustrate the tight balancing act that seniors need to factor in when doing retirement and budget planning.  Health care costs, are now a greater percentage of retirees expenses than any other budget item and as medical costs rise, many retires will be squeezed further by the reality that they often don’t have enough savings or income to cover medical and prescription drug costs.

Canada Drugs, online Canadian Pharmacy is committed to offering an affordable alternative and offering some price relief to out of control health care costs. Even with Medicare coverage, many seniors face large out-of-pocket prescription drug costs and we offer an opportunity to save significant amounts of money by taking advantage of lower priced international medication. It’s simply impossible for many people of fixed retirement incomes to afford their medical and prescription costs. With over a decade of delivering quality and service, CanadaDrugs.com offers some budget relief that can stretch budgets and allow fixed incomes some relief to sky rocketing prices.

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CanadaDrugs.com offers American woman an affordable alternative to the rising cost of oral contraceptive birth control that is forcing many to go without. Ordering from CanadaDrugs.com can mean yearly savings of several hundred dollars.

Posted by on May 2nd, 2012

Over one in three American woman reported struggling with the cost of prescription birth control pills in 2011, and for young adult woman, who are most likely to experience an unintended pregnancy, more than 55 percent experienced not being able to afford to use birth control consistently. In 2012 Canada Drugs, Canadian Pharmacy has lowered its price on prescription birth control products and is offering customers a further 25% off their first birth control product order.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Winnipeg, Manitoba – (May 1 2012)

High costs are touted as one of the primary barriers to contraceptive access for American woman. Oral birth control prices range in price from $20 to $85 dollars a month and when the cost of doctors visits are factored in, the potential yearly cost for a woman with no or limited insurance is over $1300 yearly for birth control. With this cost rising faster than the rate of inflation, more and more American woman are feeling price pressures when it comes to affording effective family planning medication, including popular options such as Tri-Cyclen Lo, Yaz, and Seasonale.

Currently as many as 10,700,000 women in the United States rely on the birth control pill alone, and one in three women using the pill reported having struggled with the cost of prescription birth control at some point in 2011, with over 55% of young woman, those mostly likely to be using oral contraceptives, reporting that they had difficulty taking their prescription consistently because of the costs associated.

Private insurance plans often cover only 50% of the total costs of oral contraceptives, and many plans offer no coverage for the medication, leaving woman to pay out-of-pocket. The high cost of birth control is one of the reasons why women of reproductive age spend 68 percent more on out-of-pocket health care expenses than their male counterparts do.

Canada Drugs, Canadian Pharmacy offers woman struggling to afford their oral contraceptives a discount prescription option. With savings that vary between 20% and 40% off the U.S retail price, a woman taking the birth control pill can save a few hundred dollars a year ordering from CanadaDrugs.com. The Canada Drugs online pharmacy carries a wide assortment of oral contraceptives, including discount Tri-Cyclen Lo, discount Yaz, and discount Seasonale. For those with high co-pays or premiums, the direct cash savings of Canada Drugs also often work out cheaper than ordering through costly insurance plans.

“If you’re already paying out-of-pocket for a product like birth control, we’ll save you money over the U.S retail cost. We range between 20%-80% savings on prescription products. If you’re currently paying for contraceptives through a health plan or insurance our trained Patient Service Representatives will work through a no-obligation price quote and see if there are savings to be had. We’re a company built on offering our customers value, and if it doesn’t make sense for a woman to order from us, we’ll tell her. Our prices are lower than retail cost on brand versions, and we also offer more affordable generic alternatives that can further lower the cost,” said Brock Gunter-Smith, Chief Business Development Officer for Canada Drugs. “As a further incentive to consider the benefits of an online pharmacy, for the rest of 2012, we are offering a 25% discount on all new orders of a birth control product with CanadaDrugs.com.”

To receive the further 25% offer on oral contraceptive products a new patient just has to mention “Birth Control Offer 2012” when placing their order with CanadaDrugs.com over the phone or online.

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About CanadaDrugs.com

Canada Drugs is the largest and most trusted online Canadian pharmacy. In operation since 2001, Canada Drugs has safely filled over 6 million prescriptions for American patients. At Canada Drugs, we maintain extremely rigorous standards in patient safety. We believe access to essential prescription drugs should be safe, convenient, and affordable for all. Canada Drugs is a certified member of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA), the Manitoba International Pharmacists Association (MIPA), the Better Business Bureau (BBB), VeriSign and is a 5 star rated pharmacy from Pharmacy Checker.com. As a premiere Canadian Internet-based and mail order pharmacy, CanadaDrugs.com LP is licensed by the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association to distribute prescription medication. For more information on CanadaDrugs.com visit our website or call 1-800-226-3784.

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Brock Gunter-Smith
Chief Business Development Officer

CanadaDrugs.com Group of Companies
16 Terracon Place
Winnipeg, MB, Canada
R2J 4G7

Office: (204) 654-7950
Mobile: (204) 291-3494
Fax: (204) 258-7010

www.canadadrugs.com

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More American Seniors are rationing as Drug Costs Rise Again in 2011

Posted by on April 11th, 2012

In 2011 the overall level of U.S spending on prescription drugs grew just barley by 0.5 percent to a total of just over $320 billion according to the annual report released this week from IMS Health. However, don’t take this as a sign that U.S drug costs, the highest in the world, are giving consumers a break.

The drop in prescription drug spending is actually tied to more and more people going without the drugs they need because of the high costs. The study reported that the lower overall spend on drugs was tied to a drop in physician office visits and non-emergency room hospital admissions. These are places where drugs are most often prescribed. In direct proportion to the decline in visits to doctors office was an almost 8% increase in visits to emergency rooms, indicating people are delaying treatment until they are very sick.

The other factor in the lower use of drugs was a decline in actual use of prescription drugs, particularly by seniors, who are traditionally the biggest consumers of the products. Patients ages 65 and older reduced their use of prescription drugs by 3.1 percent, with the biggest drop coming in the use of medicines to control blood pressure. Drugs used for other chronic diseases, including osteoporosis and cholesterol, also saw a big drop among seniors. With no miracle cure for these chronic conditions having emerged, the drop in use of drugs to treat these conditions is tied to seniors skipping getting treatment or rationing pills and taking one pill with a meal, when perhaps two were prescribed.

CanadaDrugs.com, Canadian Pharmacy is committed to offering an affordable alternative to seniors, and all Americans who are being pressed with these rising prices and considering having to ration care. We offer savings of up to 80% on prescription drugs and are dedicated to giving those that are struggling with high costs a place to turn when faced with the very real possibility of having to skip doses or forgoing filling a prescription all together.

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CanadaDrugs.com offers consumer savings as inflation soars on prescription drug prices.

Posted by on March 7th, 2012

Retail prices for prescription drugs have soared over the rate of inflation, pushing prices higher for American consumers already faced with the highest cost of prescription medication in the world. CanadaDrugs.com, the largest online Canadian pharmacy, is combating inflationary prices by offering lower cost international medication to its patients.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Winnipeg, Manitoba – (March 7 2011)

Two recent studies on inflationary budget pressures in the United States reveal that the cost of prescription medication for American consumers, already the highest in the world, is continuing to rise, putting increased pressure on household budgets already squeezed by the high cost of medication. The studies from the American Institute for Economic Research and the AARP Public Policy Institute both demonstrate that rising drug costs and the impact of prescription drug price changes are forcing more and more Americans to make hard choices in how to fit lifesaving drugs into their monthly budgets. Canada Drugs, as the largest international online prescription provider, is offering price relief to those struggling with increased costs by offering lower priced international brand medication and a wider selection of more affordable generic prescription medication.

While the Consumer Price Index, the governments widely used measure of inflation reported a 3.1 percent rise in prices over 2011, the American Institute for Economic Research focused exclusively on the cost of Americans typical daily purchases, such as food, gasoline and prescription drugs, and found that these costs rose over 8 percent in the past year. The AARP Public Policy Institute study dug deeper into the rising cost of prescription medication and found that the cumulative change in prices for brand-name prescription medication from 2005 through 2009 was almost double the rate of inflation. The AARP examined retail prices for the 514 prescription drugs most used by Medicare beneficiaries and saw the average rate of increase for these drugs was 4.8 percent, while the retail prices for brand name and specialty drug products rose by 8.3 and 8.9 percent. Altogether from 2004 to 2009 the cost of drugs increased by 25.6 percent, compared to a general inflation rate of 13.3 percent. For consumers taking a drug on a chronic basis, their average annual cost rose from $2,160 to $3,168 over the same time period.

Due to this large increase in drug costs, the AARP has called for Congress to allow for the safe and legal importation of prescription drugs from abroad. CanadaDrugs.com, as the largest and most established online pharmacy, supports American consumers having greater choice in their prescription drug purchases. With price savings that average between 20%-80% off the typical American retail price, Canada Drugs, Canadian pharmacy, has been offering it’s customers significant drug savings since 2001. With no enrollment plans, premiums, or co-pays, Canada Drugs offers easy price relief to those struggling with high drug costs, and to seniors facing the Medicare Part-D doughnut hole. Canada Drugs offers a selection of thousands of varieties of discount prescription medication, with popular types of products including discount Nexium, discount Flomax, and discount Singulair.

“We see the effects of drug price inflation everyday on our customers when they call us unable to afford their drug bills, or when they have fallen into the Medicare-D Doughnut Hole. We have a dedicated team to assist Medicare-D users that will work with them to maximize their drug savings and help lower the out-of-pocket costs they are paying for their drugs,” said Brock Gunter-Smith, Chief Business Development Officer for Canada Drugs.

The same AARP report also revealed that the retail prices for generic drugs decreased by 7.8 percent over the same period. CanadaDrugs.com also offers a wide selection of generic equivalents that offer the greatest price savings to its customers. Generic equivalents of drugs such as Propecia or Advair Diskus offer affordable alternatives to higher cost brand name version.

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About CanadaDrugs.com

Canada Drugs is the largest and most trusted online Canadian pharmacy. In operation since 2001, Canada Drugs has safely filled over 6 million prescriptions for American patients. At Canada Drugs, we maintain extremely rigorous standards in patient safety. We believe access to essential prescription drugs should be safe, convenient, and affordable for all. Canada Drugs is a certified member of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA), the Manitoba International Pharmacists Association (MIPA), the Better Business Bureau (BBB), VeriSign and is a 5 star rated pharmacy from Pharmacy Checker.com. As a premiere Canadian Internet-based and mail order pharmacy, CanadaDrugs.com LP is licensed by the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association to distribute prescription medication. For more information on CanadaDrugs.com visit our website or call 1-800-226-3784.

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The Financial Burden of Prescription Drugs on American Families

Posted by on February 16th, 2012

More than 8 million non-senior Americans lived in families facing a high drug-cost burden in 2008 and 25% of those families devoted more than half of their total out-of-pocket medical spending to prescription drugs, according to findings published last week in the February edition of the medical research journal Health Affairs.

The study also revealed that this financial burden of high prescription drug costs would have been even greater if it was not for the expanded use of generic drugs by Americans over the past decade. In 2003, over 10 million American families were classified as spending more than 10 percent of their income on out-of-pocket drugs costs, this fell to 8 million in 2008. The reason for this decline was that between 36 and 39 percent of Americans under 65 filled prescriptions with generic drugs from 1999 to 2003. By 2008, that share had risen to more than half, or 56 percent, who filled their prescriptions using generic drugs, meaning the overall costs of their prescription drug bills had fallen because of the savings offered by generic drugs.

Americans, though even with the growth of generic options, could still have reason to be concerned about future drug costs. For example, the study’s authors said that state governments in need of cash have been looking to increase co-payments for people covered by state-run Medicaid health insurance programs, and private health care plan premiums are often unavailable to low income Americans that can’t afford the monthly premiums.

The study also found that people with chronic health conditions were more likely to face a high financial burden because of drug costs. In 2008, more than one in eight people with diabetes faced a high financial burden because of drug costs and a majority of people with the illness lived in families where drug costs accounted for more than half of all out-of-pocket health-care spending. Similar trends were seen for patients with high blood pressure and mental disorders.

The fact that still over 8 million American families are faced with spending over 10% of their income on drug costs is the reason CanadaDrugs.com, Canadian Pharmacy offers 40%-80% direct cash savings. Our international generic discount prescription medication offers the greatest possible savings to those faced with too high American costs.

We believe passionately that affordable prescription medication should be available to those struggling with the financial burden of drug costs and that is why for over a decade we have worked to be source of safe, affordable drugs to those faced with bills that they couldn’t afford. The generic savings the study argues have helped reduced the strain of high costs since 2003 are even greater from reputable online pharmacies like Canada Drugs because generic drugs are available sooner in other countries.

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