From Guinea Pig to Shark: My Own Experience with Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs: Part I

Does anyone remember that yesteryear hairclub for men commercials? The one where the CEO said he’s not only the CEO, but also a customer?

I kind of adopt that mentality whenever I can too – when I work for an employer. If you really want to walk the talk, you have to try the product or service out to have the experience if it’s something you want or need, so you can appreciate the entire user experience, and/or feel their pain.

So, I’m going to share with you all that I went ahead and just tried the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company out…on myself. I became my own pharmacy experiment – or Guinea Pig, with an N of 1.

Every scientist begins with a hypothesis (Ho): My hypothesis starting out was that Mark Cuban was going to be lower cost on prescription drugs than my current set up.

…but I’ll be honest, I was skeptical. I currently had a pretty good deal. How much cheaper would he really be?

I had to find out!

I tried 2 prescription medications that don’t really cost that much to begin with to crank up the pressure a bit—they’ve been generic forever, and I’ve usually been on a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) with an HSA now for several years and never got anywhere near meeting my deductible.

One drug had been running about $7 a quarter to fill, and then the other was just under $16 a quarter to fill. I don’t use my own Rx insurance because: a. I hate filling only a 30-day supply at a time (gas to get there, time to stand in line, etc.), and b. It cost more to run it under insurance than to use a coupon and pay cash in some instances through the years.

All in, I was paying ~$92 a year for my 2 prescriptions, and had the pleasure and joy of standing in line at the pharmacy every quarter to pick them up. Not bad - $92 for one script let alone 2 for an entire year is nothing to most pharmacy plans these days, considering that the average specialty drug can run into thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars per monthly fill. And, only 4 visits to the pharmacy rather than 12 (sorry, but whoever designs pharmacies these days really does not make most of them worth hanging out in – one exception being here , which exactly zero pharmacies in Indiana that I am aware of are designed by. But I digress.)

Could Mark Cuban really deliver less cost than this, when I already have a pretty good deal?

Here’s what I did to run my experiment:

1.????I started by searching for one of the medications at the site.

2.????Next, I started an account online at the website, it took a couple of minutes,

3.????Then, a form popped up for refill requests. I just filled it out on my computer. It was one sheet, and included multiple refill line requests.

4.????I filled out the form, saved it on my computer, and sent it to my doctor requesting the refills – electronically online through my doc’s patient portal – (I realize not everyone may have this – but you can fax it too.*)

5.????I didn’t want to mess around with 90-day fills – I went all in and got a full year of prescription drugs with my refills. That was 360 days’ supply of my 2 drugs. In the interest of full disclosure, there is no pricing on 180 days’ supply or 365 days’ supply on our website – but I just counted on the cost being 4X of a 90 days’ supply.

My doctor’s office being awesome like they are immediately filled out the form and faxed it over to the # on the pharmacy form. Same-day in the afternoon – boom. I received an email that my two scripts were ready to go. For the ENTIRE YEAR**. All I needed to do was hit a button and check out, add shipping, put in my HSA credit card, and we’re good to go.

So, how did the pricing fare?

-The $7/quarter drug ($28 a year) is now $10.20 for a FULL YEAR’s supply.

-The $16/quarter drug ($64 a year) is now $12.00 for a FULL YEAR’s supply.

But wait! We can’t forget the postage – add on another $5.

Total cost – with the $5 mailing fee: $27.20. Or, if you want to go back to quarters, $6.80 total cost per quarter. Savings for the year was nearly $70! (You may laugh at that, but to me, that’s almost enough to grab those high-top Chuck Taylor’s I’ve always wanted!)

The hypothesis was TRUE. I really DID save money with Mark Cuban, even when I already thought I had a decent deal. ?

Friends, I’m not just an employee of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC, but I’m also a customer. You don’t even need to experiment on yourself – I did it for you. I ask that you in this era of high inflation and tough times, however, please check your drug costs out on our website. You, like me, may be pleasantly surprised.

Here's part 2 of this experiment.

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Erin L. Albert is a pharmacist, lawyer, and VP of Trade Relations & General Counsel for Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC. She is also a customer and is buying brand drugs net of rebates and other markups right now for MCCPDC. Opinions here are hers alone, and not necessarily those of the company.

Footnotes:

*Okay – here’s a pro-level tip that I did game the system a bit – if you can hire a good pharmacist for a few hours of their time to have them go through all your medications, I’m certain they could help you with this. But, you need to look at the dose of your medication and see which immediate-release formulation tablets, if any, could be split in order to find the lowest cost for better savings. Different strengths of the same drug may have dramatically different costs too.

This is not something that is easy to do, however, because not all meds can be split, but if you hire a local pharmacist to help you set up and optimize your drug dosing & pricing, it’s probably the BEST money you ever spent. You can find a pharmacist and ask them about their drug optimizing services independent even of a pharmacy through CPESN , here , if you are a senior patient, PharmToTable for functional medicine pharmacists, or check with your network. I do not recommend going rogue and doing this part yourself, however - please hire a licensed pharmacist to help you.

**Note: if you buy a year's supply - you only have one $3 dispensing fee. Keep that in mind to keep costs lower.