Save on Prescription Drugs
The neighborhood pharmacy program assures members the lowest price on prescription drugs, saving 10% to 85% on most prescriptions.
It's easy to use. Simply present your membership card to the pharmacist with the prescription. The pharmacist calculates the discount, and you pay the discounted price. No other paperwork required!
Highlights
- 10% to 85% savings on most medications.
- Over 60,000 national and regional pharmacy chains participate as well as independent pharmacies.
- No pharmacy program is complete unless it includes both retail locations where members may fill acute care medications and a mail order program so members may optimize their savings by purchasing maintenance prescriptions in 90 day supplies to treat ongoing ailments.
- Do not call the pharmacy for price quotes. Prices may change from day to day and they cannot be given over the telephone.
Mail Order Pharmacy
To ensure members always save money on their prescription drugs, a unique mail order program was created to complement the network pharmacy benefit. Since most maintenance medications are purchased in 90 day supplies, members maximize savings and have the convenience of home delivery (at no additional charge) through HealthTrans. Accuracy is assured by requiring every order to pass seven quality checkpoints before shipping.
Highlights
- Members are guaranteed savings when purchasing long-term, maintenance medications prescribed to treat on-going ailments such as arthritis, heart disease and high cholesterol. The mail order prescription price is guaranteed to be $5.00 less than the lowest competitive price quote from a local pharmacy provided the brand or generic drug costs over $10.00 or 10% below AARP pricing.
- There are never dispensing or postage fees added except for “rush” deliveries.
- Prescriptions are delivered right to your door.
- Unlike competitive programs that restrict available medications to their "approved" list, the Mail Order Prescription Plan is an "open formulary", so doctors may prescribe the most effective medication to treat the member's ailment or condition.
*The $5.00 guaranteed savings cannot be used in conjunction with other discount or insurance cards.
**Pharmacy Discounts are Not Insurance and are Not Intended as a Substitute for Insurance.
The discount is only available at participating pharmacies.
The program administrator may obtain fees from pharmacies based on your prescription drug purchases. These fees may be retained by the program administrator or shared with you and/or your pharmacy.Common Questions
Q. What can I expect to save with this membership?
A. Prices will always vary on prescription drugs and therefore it is impossible to estimate specific dollar savings through any non-insured drug program. Your membership offers two avenues for drug purchases: The Neighborhood Pharmacy program offers 10% to 85% discounts on acute care medications and the Mail Order Pharmacy guarantees an average of 10% off AARP's prices. Should you receive a quote anywhere else for less than our mail order pharmacy, we will beat it by a minimum of $5.00 on brand name and generic medications priced at $10.00 or more with no postage or dispensing fees added. Savings can not be used in conjunction with other discount or insurance cards.
Q. Do I get a discount on every single drug at the neighborhood pharmacy when I use my Membership card?
A. Not necessarily. Drug stores, like hardware and grocery stores determine their own pricing structures. Due to large discounts from manufacturers, some drugs may already be priced at or below the PBM's discount price. However, as a general rule, you can expect that 80% to 90% of your required, acute care prescription needs will be discounted below the stores usual retail price. The PBM network pharmacies have agreed to sell prescription drugs at the contract price, or their "usual retail price" whichever is lower.
Q. Why didn't I save any money at the participating local drugstore?
A. More than likely, you ordered a long-term maintenance medication versus a short-term acute care medication such as an antibiotic or pain-killer. Most pharmacies use long-term, maintenance medications as "loss leaders" and price these drugs at or below cost. They do this so that their customers will assume that all their prices are low. It's a marketing strategy. The pharmacy realizes that for long-term medications, you'll shop around in order to get the best price for a medication that you may be taking for the rest of your life. As the consumer, you are led to believe that this pharmacy has low prices on all their prescription drugs and other items. Our pharmacy program has contracted with independent and chain pharmacies nationwide to offer you a discounted price that will normally save you 10% to 85% on short term medications. However, in order to draw customers, many pharmacies opt to price their prescriptions lower than the contracted price. In this case the member gets the lower of the two. Normally, they use high profile maintenance drugs for these "loss leader" price reductions such as Prozac, Zantac, and Premarin. In order to guarantee members a savings, we established a mail order pharmacy program which absolutely, positively guarantees to beat any price quoted elsewhere by a minimum of $5.00 with no dispensing or postage fees added provided the brand or generic price exceeds $10.00.
Q. What if the Pharmacist doesn't recognize the card's name?
A. Always make inquiries in person and be sure to bring your card with you. When the pharmacist sees the Pharmacy Benefit Manager information on the card, the pharmacist then understands which program you are on.
Q. Is this a co-pay insurance card?
A. No. A co-pay card is an insured product where the customer pays a preset amount and the insurance company pays the remainder. This membership is a discount card offering reduced prices. You are responsible to pay the pharmacy 100% of the discounted price.
Q. I'm a member and called the Mail Order Pharmacy to get a price quote on my maintenance drugs. The price quote was higher than my old pharmacy. What should I do?
A. When you call the Mail Order Pharmacy to get a price quote, be sure to tell the representative where you found it for less. If the quotation you are given does not beat the price you are currently paying by at least $5.00, the operator will verify the price being charged at your local pharmacy and beat it by $5.00. This outstanding price guarantee is effective for all brand or generic drugs priced over $10.00.
*The $5.00 guaranteed savings cannot be used in conjunction with other discount or insurance cards.
Payment must be made at the time of service in order to receive a discount