"Times are tough," said Robin Michel, executive vice president for Giant Food, which is based in Landover. "If this is the way that we can help most people, why not?"
Shortly after the announcement, Wegmans, a chain of 72 stores on the east coast, announced their own free antibiotics program.
Wegmans' spokeswoman Jo Natale says the program has been in the works for weeks and called the timing of the announcements coincidental. She says the Wegmans program was not a direct reaction to Giant's program.
Customers will, of course, still need a prescription from their doctors.
Giant Food To Offer Free Prescription Antibiotics [WaPo]
Wegman's Joins Giant, Offers Free Antibiotics [WaPo]
why not give away free inhalers to asthmatics? Isn't breathing important too? Even if it was just free for kids, that would help alot.
]]>The average cost of medical school can be up to $200,000. The average annual cost of liability insurance for an Ob-Gyn is somewhere around $100,000 (yes, I checked before writing that), an amount that has put many doctors out of business. They must pay employees, pay business taxes, pay rent, pay for the supplies of doing business, and they have the right to earn a comfortable income after all of those costs.
I get the sense from your profile that you live in California, not Cambodia. If you can't find a free medical clinic you either haven't bothered to look, or feel you are too good for it. If you can't ask your doctor a question, stand up for yourself - are they going to shoot you if you ask? Refuse to answer? I doubt it. I have a critically ill child with brain cancer who is currently an inpatient in the hospital, and has had a medical appointment almost every single day since August 2008, and I have NEVER been unable to get a question answered if I insist on it.
Get over precious self and enter the real world. Your solution is "seriously, they need to fix it.". How dear? Should they just eat the cost of your medical care - are you THAT precious? What wisdom do you impart on how they should go about doing that? Obviously the solution is sitting right there in your head.
]]>From a registered pharmacist, let me say thank you. As if we didn't have enough antibiotic resistance before this.
I thought it was bad with the $4.00 lists, but now we will have even more patients asking to have their medication changed from something that their DOCTOR specifically selected based on the symptoms, culture reports and resistance rates for specific antibiotics in the area, to something that's "on the free list"
Every antibiotic works the exact same way, right?
]]>The other part that may change in the future, is when insurance companies finally catch on to this, use this as an excuse to ask, "If Wal-mart can do this and make money why can't all the other pharmacies?" and thus may try to cut reimbursement costs to pharmacies. In turn doing this they will probably not lower insurance premiums either as they never do.
Now, if someone comes in and has no insurance, and costs them 50-60 bucks for a generic, we usually send them to Wal-mart.
-Phex
-3rd Year PharmD/MBA Candidate
I'm all for them getting paid. I'm totally however not for them charging exorbitant amounts for basically doing nothing. I go in after waiting forever because they're always running late (not always their fault, but sometimes is, especially when it's the first appointment of the day) spend 10-15 minutes with the doctor if i'm lucky, being rushed all the meanwhile without being able to get answers to the questions I try and interject, all so they can write a script for a new inhalor or whatever. It's absurd. either charge reasonable rates or make it so insurance is actually affordable to people who can't get it through work. I understand all the reasons why the costs are so high but seriously, they need to fix it. All of it.
Free clinics Psht, I wish. Not around here.
]]>But, I've heard of more than one person being turned down because they are *uninsured*. No one to pay for any part of it.
]]>I think the attitude you show is uninformed, unrealistic and immature. Just writing a prescription (not to mention serious medical diagnosis or treatment) requires medical expertise and can incur serious liability (and rightly so).
And in fact, there are free clinics anywhere I've ever lived.
]]>(Quoting the above-linked 2003 article: "We describe a case of spontaneous rupture of the Achilles' tendon associated with ciprofloxacin." "Fluoroquinolone use and repeated tendon ruptures in our patient, who did not have any risk factors, both suggested a clear causal relationship and emphasized the roles of individual factors. Because these antimicrobials are in common use, physicians should consider this side effect even in the absence of the risk factors.")
]]>@Ash78: Haha. Nice. I fail at humor. :)
]]>@bunnymare: This is very true. Good point. I don't think people are seeing a traditional $30 co-pay and thinking "I guess I'll go without" (and if they do, that's specifically the type of person the freebies are supposed to help). In my mind, though, I was thinking about all the overbearing moms who "demand" antibiotics from their pediatricians for every ailment.
And I went to plenty of antibiotic parties in college! :D
]]>@ekthesy: Also in agreement about the meat industry. I found these 2 articles interesting -
"Antibiotic resistance in food-related bacteria"
[www.sciencedirect.com]
and
"Antibiotic resistance genes and identification of staphylococci collected from the production chain of swine meat commodities"
[www.sciencedirect.com]
@ekthesy: when you're prescribed a course of antibiotics, you pay for the whole thing.
Most of the time. But some insurance companies will only pay for what they consider 1 month's worth at a time. I would have appreciated having this availible a few years ago, when I needed 3-month's worth of doxycycline before a trip to a malarial zone. A fairly rare experience, but I'm sure there are other people who need more than what their insurance company has determined is their quota for the month. Making them free means it's more likely they'll take the full course.
It also makes it more likely they'll be willing to try a different antibiotic if their dr determines that what they have isn't responding for a first-line course of treatment, since there won't be a financial penalty for diagnostic guesswork.
]]>Bad logic - PRESCRIPTION antibiotics have an inherent gatekeeper, in that these stores are NOT giving them away without a prescription written by a licensed physician.
Furthermore, I don't think it's valid to compare antibiotics and painkillers. Unless you know a lot of people who get all hopped up on penicillin or amoxicillin. Ha.
]]>Well, when you're prescribed a course of antibiotics, you pay for the whole thing. People should finish the treatment regardless of whether they paid nothing or paid the full price for it.
And I fully++ agree with you about the meat industry, but I admit I'm not educated enough to know if the widespread use of antibiotics in animals raised for meat is responsible for resistant strains of bacteria in animals, in humans, or in both.
]]>@bunnymare: I actually held a similar complaint/theory in college, while watching prescription pill and Ecstasy prices go down, that it was the reason behind the massive increase in usage. Not the same thing, obviously, but people are a little more cavalier when low cost (or no cost) is in involved.
Magazines and newspapers could do just fine on ad revenues, but they have to charge a small subscription fee to keep EVERYONE from signing up (and bankrupting them!).
COME ON PEOPLE!
Ewwww, gross!
]]>COME ON PEOPLE!
]]>@valsharess1: Boo. Serves me right for watching my stories whilst having the comment window open.
]]>It may not in itself lead to more prescriptions for antibiotics, but patients knowing they can get them for free will likely lead to an increase in requests for antibiotic scrips, i.e. "Can you just write me a prescription for antibiotics?" As a PharmD candidate, you would know that many doctors will just write the scrip to get the pt out the door.
And as more and more PAs and NPs are writing scrips, you'll see that phenomenon increase.
]]>When I had dogs, their prices for EVERYTHING (including Heartguard) were fantastic. My dogs' meds were half the price I'd pay at the vet's.
It used to really burn the vet when I'd ask for a prescription instead of buying the meds directly from him. Too bad.
]]>It's really just a publicity stunt. Those antibiotics are insanely cheap anyway.
]]>"If this is the way that we can help most people, why not?"
What this really translates as..
"If this is the way that we can increase prescription volume and get customers inside the store to wait on the prescriptions and do some shopping while they wait, then we should do it. At the same time, we can claim we are doing a service for the community."
Basically, that is all this is. Publix grocery chain offered free antibiotics in my area for over the last year so this is not the first time it has been done.
I am not saying this is not a service for the community as it can certainly be helpful to people on the lower part of the economic tree as well as the middle class. I've heard of cases where a person saves 80 dollars total for getting antibiotics for their 3 kids (this specific case was a pharmacist going to another pharmacy to take advantage of the free drugs).
Generic antibiotics are generally quite cheap. Amoxicillin, Penicillin, and Ciprofloxacin are all very very cheap. If they can get someone in the store waiting on their free antibiotics to buy just a 2 liter of coke then it pays for the pills. Sometimes even a pack of gum will do the trick. If I remember correctly, my pharmacy gets a 100 count bottle of generic Cipro for about 5 dollars, Amoxicillin capsules in bottles of 500 for about 20 bucks, and Penicillin V in bottles of 500 for about 15 bucks (all from Cardinal Health). So the tablets/capsules only cost pennies while the bottle and label probably cost a little more.
This is also a way to create customer loyalty and bring the customer back with their other prescriptions which the grocer can turn a profit from as well.
This seems to be the new fad for antibiotics in grocery store pharmacies. Not all chains are doing this, however, it looks to be that primarily grocery chains are the #1 user of this tactic.
-Phex
-3rd Year PharmD/MBA Candidate
For what it's worth, Publix (popular chain the the southeast, mainly Florida) is also advertising free antibiotics, although I haven't had to avail myself of the offer so I don't know the details.
]]>It depends on the antibiotic and on your reaction to them but, yeah, while antibiotics are targeted to be better at killing specific bacteria, the fact is they're killing ALL your bacteria, and you need that friendly bacteria colony in your gut to help you digest your food and manufacture vitamin K, and those guys are all getting killed off too.
(F'ex, amoxicillan I barely notice. Erthromycin screwed me up so bad the doctor and I agreed I'd be better off sick because the cure was hella worse than the disease!)
]]>@gertymac: Just a bad William Wegman joke. Here's a GIS (SFW), you've probably seen his photos: [images.google.com]
]]>However, your statement that over prescribing of antibiotics being a concern is very real. Over prescribing antibiotics causes drug resistance.
-Phex
-3rd Year PharmD/MBA Candidate
Yah, when I got bit by my sister's cat I got a nasty infection and was put on some strong antibiotics.
The GI problems with antibiotics is one reason I always have a hard time finishing them. I always do, though, despite the troubles, just because I don't want to be infected by a superbug.
]]>We've been getting free antibiotics from Meijers in Michigan for years now.
]]>Kudos to the stores that are doing this. Every little bit helps. I'm sure some people will move thier other prescriptions to these pharmacieswhich will result in higher revenue.
]]>We named our hamster after Wegmans. We call him "D.Wegs" (after its founder, Danny Wegmans). Why, you ask? Because I miss a sweet grocery store. How crazy is that?
]]>@unobservant: Too late. :)
]]>Rampant epidemic theories in 3,2...
]]>@Ash78:
Heartguard is a prescription med for dogs, you can only get it at the vet.
@crashedpc: Yep, think of them as the opposite of the "probiotics" that yogurts tout. Antibiotics kill most of the bacteria in your body, both good and bad...and many of the good ones are in your gut, aiding digestion.
]]>In other words, the more antibiotics are used to treat a disease or condition, the less effective those antibiotics will be at treating that disease in the future.
What we really need is a concerted effort to reduce the cost of other prescriptions that are still on-patent.
]]>I went to Wegman's looking for some Heartguard for my Weimaraner, but left disappointed.
On a more related note, I bet they jack up the price for Imodium in turn. Anyone who's spent much time on antibiotics knows what I mean.
]]>