Is GoodRx legit?

July 10, 2019 8:13 AM

My doc has armed me with a GoodRx card. Is it really as effective as it claims?

My doc wants to try me on a med that my insurer doesn't include in their formulary, would require them to sign-off on it, and would still cost me a huge amount out-of-pocket. So, he handed me a GoodRx card, then we looked on their website, plugged-in my local pharmacy and saw that, hokey smokes!, the med is now highly affordable.

What has been your experience with GoodRx? Have the cost estimates on their website been relatively accurate? Any nasty surprises? Any caveats?

Also: If I have a GoodRx card, I don't need to print-off the coupon from their website, correct?

Thanks!

posted by Thorzdad to Health & Fitness (12 answers total)

Best answer: Any caveats?

As I understand it, GoodRx will get your name and prescription/medication information. You can see on their privacy page that "No account, name, address, payment or credit card is required to access GoodRx and find savings. " (emphasis added) and that "your pharmacy will send us information about the prescription and the price you paid (this is standard industry procedure)."
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:18 AM on July 10, 2019

Best answer: It works quite well for some things, not so well for other things. But I have several prescriptions that I don't fill on my insurance because GoodRX is cheaper. I have had GoodRX come back with a price HUNDREDS of dollars cheaper than my insurance wants me to pay, in some cases. So if they wanna know how much gabapentin I take, let 'em.
posted by headspace at 8:40 AM on July 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Hmm, I've always just used the app, found the coupon, and had the cashier scan it from my phone. My doc never gave me a card, and the discounts always work for me. It really does save me a ton of money!
posted by ananci at 8:48 AM on July 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Mr. BlahLaLa used it for a med he needed a couple of years ago. He got it, price was waaaay less, and then life moved on. We've never been contacted by GoodRx or had any further messaging from them.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:00 AM on July 10, 2019

Best answer: GoodRx really does work. It's basically giving you access to negotiated Pharmacy Benefit Manager pricing without going through insurance. I use it sometimes because the price GoodRx gets me is lower than the price through my insurance. I don't have a card, I just use the website anonymously. Welcome to the world where you can pay $150, $35, or $5 for the exact same product depending on whose pricing you use.

There are other companies that do similar discounting; Blink Health is one of them. Also a few pharmacies have very low pricing on most common medication without any cards or gimmicks; Costco, Target, etc. Usually those show up as lowest price on GoodRx too.

One caveat; the amount you're paying out of pocket is probably not automatically being credited to your health insurance, which means you don't get credit for eating away at your deductible or yearly out-of-pocket maximum. I've never tried it but I think in theory you can report the cost to your insurance and maybe they'd credit it towards deductible. Or maybe not, the health insurance market is so messed up who knows.
posted by Nelson at 9:15 AM on July 10, 2019 [8 favorites]

Best answer: It works. It's just a coupon site. I got Wellbutrin for SO MUCH cheaper than I normally would have.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:06 AM on July 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I just used GoodRX this morning for my kiddo. Even with walmarts low ass prescription prices it helps. An antibiotic and a steroid without insurance would have been $68.23. With the GoodRX discount it was $46.97. Last month for a different antibiotic the savings were more than $100!
posted by shmurley at 10:19 AM on July 10, 2019

Best answer: GoodRx has made it possible for us to continue to care for a seizure dog that takes human epilepsy meds-- zonisamide. It drops our cost from more than $150 per month to about $38. We have used it for years. We also just go to the website on our phone and show the code to the pharmacy tech. It works great, and has kept Daisy alive for eight years longer than the vet said she would live.
posted by seasparrow at 11:00 AM on July 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone!

So, I just ran over to my big-box pharmacy and filled the prescription. Worked like a charm. It went from a prior-authoization-required $85/30 pills, to a hey-no-problem $16/30 pills. I'm sold.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:36 AM on July 10, 2019 [6 favorites]

Rxsaver (from RetailMeNot) is also another option. They work with different PBMs (pharmacy benefits managers as mentioned above) than goodrx does so may be able to offer different discounts. I used to work at rmn and was surprised to learn about the discounts possible through these companies. My cat has a prescription that I was originally paying 2x for until I looked it up on rxsaver.
posted by theRussian at 6:49 PM on July 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

For the particular prescriptions I need, I never found GoodRx to beat CostCo pharmacy prices (you don't need a membership to use the pharmacy). Of course this likely varies by medication.
posted by thedward at 3:04 PM on July 12, 2019

Nice, good work making the best of a shitty healthcare system. I often check even with insurance for anyone who later reads this!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:29 AM on July 16, 2019