This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
If you are one of the lucky folks that have health insurance, then this is a story that you should know about.
Walgreens and Express Scriptsare duking it out over how much money Express Scripts wants to reimburse Walgreens for the prescriptions that Walgreens charges their pharmacy customers. Now the average person might think that is a good thing, but Express Scripts wants Walgreens lower their profit margin to the point where Walgreens will not be able to compete with other local pharmacies. And that could be a very bad thing; competition is a vital part in keeping prices low.
What Express Scripts is trying to do is force their policyholders to get their prescriptions through their mail order program. In the past their method of encouraging the policyholders to do that was simply by providing their policyholders with lower prices. But the
Prescription Savings Club at Walgreens has given customers the opportunity to keep their business at Walgreens, and Express Script does not want that to happen.
Many customers enjoy the personal friendships that they have nurtured with their local pharmacist, and forcing them to buy their medicines through mail order is very disruptive to their lives. The biggest problem that I see in this, however, is that Walgreens is often the only pharmacy in town that is open twenty-four hours a day, which is vital for the patients coming out of the emergency rooms. If Express Scripts is successful in its attempts (which to be completely honest with you sounds like a violation of the anti-trust laws about monopolies) to force customers to take their business away from Walgreens, that could make or break the ability for Walgreens to maintain the level of service that our towns depend on.
If you are interested in keeping up with the brouhaha, you can follow
Walgreens on Twitteror like
Walgreens on Facebookand I’m sure you’ll be kept up to date. I think that people should be allowed to get their prescriptions filled where ever they want them filled! Believe me, I am glad that my prescription coverage is not with Express Scripts!
