Refilling Prescriptions on the Road

[KyDan]

Originally Posted by nomad297

I have found CVS to be the absolute worst pharmacy to deal with, regardless of whether I am home or away. I am self-pay, so I spend a lot of time shopping prices and have found Safeway to be the most consistent with the lowest prices, but Safeways are hard to find sometimes.

Bruce

One other suggestion- in some cases you can save lots of $$$$ using a coupon from a place like GoodRx.com
I am lucky and have pretty decent insurance but one of my Rx is pretty high even with insurance and 90 day by mail. I found I can get that one at Kroger or WalMart for much less using the online coupon. I mean it's much less using the coupon and NO insurance!
Crazy but it really does pay to shop around.


Also the OP never said if any of his Rx were controlled meds....

[Funengineer]

My wife normally gets a three month prescription for her medications before we leave. We have been on vacation before and took her near empty prescription bottle to a pharmacy (not the original pharmacy) for refills. As long as the bottle says there are still more refills permitted she has never had a problem. They just contact the original pharmacy and they somehow send them the written prescription to fill. One was a one month prescription for a pain medication.

[nomad297]

Originally Posted by KyDan

One other suggestion- in some cases you can save lots of $$$$ using a coupon from a place like GoodRx.com
I am lucky and have pretty decent insurance but one of my Rx is pretty high even with insurance and 90 day by mail. I found I can get that one at Kroger or WalMart for much less using the online coupon. I mean it's much less using the coupon and NO insurance!
Crazy but it really does pay to shop around.

I use GoodRx for every prescription I buy, and you are right — it does save me a lot of money. Even with GoodRx, though, I still have to shop prices with every fill and refill because the prices are always changing from pharmacy to pharmacy, and that’s part of the problem — I can’t stick with just one pharmacy and I sometimes need to get a refillable prescription transferred from one place to another. This can be a hassle at home, let alone trying to do it from one state to another.


Also the OP never said if any of his Rx were controlled meds....

Over the past few years, and especially the last two, the prescriptions for me and my wife have run the gamut on the (legal) Schedule list. When Schedule II medications are part of the equation, it is a whole different ball game — there are no ninety-day prescriptions and there are no refillable prescriptions written. It seems to be almost impossible to fill a Schedule II medication while out of state without doing it through a mail order pharmacy. Trying to use mail order pharmacies, though, almost always results in paying much more and can be very complicated. The best way I have found for using mail order pharmacies is to have the doctor FedEx the prescription to the pharmacy, then I call the pharmacy to arrange payment and delivery address. But this process takes days to complete and with the strict laws imposed on the prescribing doctor, it is almost impossible to plan ahead to where a Schedule II prescription can be (re)filled and delivered before the previous month’s prescription is emptied, leaving a one-week (or so) gap with no medication.

.

I started this thread hoping that I am just missing something that would make it easier for me to leave home without being chained down by prescriptions, but it looks like I’m out of luck, especially when it comes to the complications involved with Schedule II prescriptions.

It really sucks getting old.

Bruce

[ScottBrownstein]

Originally Posted by nomad297

.

I started this thread hoping that I am just missing something that would make it easier for me to leave home without being chained down by prescriptions, but it looks like I’m out of luck, especially when it comes to the complications involved with Schedule II prescriptions.

It really sucks getting old.

Bruce

Schedule II does add a wrinkle. However, I would ask your MD if they would mail your scripts to you, wherever you happen to be. Then I would call the major chains and ask if they have a policy concerning refilling Schedule II scripts that were written out of state. You may be surprised as I specifically asked Publix (in Florida) and their response was "heck we refill scripts written in Canada!"

[fella10]

Originally Posted by nomad297

.

It really sucks getting old.

I tell my friends, there's not many advantages to getting old, ... but that the senior discount for the early bird special at the Golden Coral is certainly one that can not be over looked, ...

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by KyDan

One other suggestion- in some cases you can save lots of $$$$ using a coupon from a place like GoodRx.com
I am lucky and have pretty decent insurance but one of my Rx is pretty high even with insurance and 90 day by mail. I found I can get that one at Kroger or WalMart for much less using the online coupon. I mean it's much less using the coupon and NO insurance!
Crazy but it really does pay to shop around.


Also the OP never said if any of his Rx were controlled meds....

I consider myself "Double Lucky". Even after a quad bypass in 2017, and having a Dr that isn't blinded by all the propaganda put out by drug company reps, all of my prescribed meds are "Generic's". Just got my latest report from my insurance carrier that shows my out of pocket expenses so far this year are still under $100. In short, I haven't even met my deductible.

The luck part for me is that I have no Diabetes or other diseases that can be expensive to treat and even though I've abused my body physically (like only dirt bikes can do ) I'm able to manage my Osteoarthritis with simple generics.

Now if I had a Dr that prescribed all the med's advertised on TV, I'm sure the costs would go up.

[RverAnn45]

In Canada, a rX cannot be refilled. To fill a rX it must be written by a Canadian physician. I made this mistake several years ago. Cost $60 to see the doc and then the cost of the rX.

In USA, we have all our rXs with Walmart. Works so easily.

[DavidBo]

Originally Posted by RverAnn45

In USA, we have all our rXs with Walmart. Works so easily.

WalMart, as already mentioned, is probably the best logistical choice as you're never that far from one in the majority of the country. Another plus is you can buy a single item without getting a 20 foot long paper receipt (I'm looking at you CVS)!