Link of the Day: AARP Drug Savings Tool Can Help Find More Affordable Prescription Drug Options

Here at MyHealthCafe.com, we try to encourage our readers to talk to their doctors and pharmacists about more affordable prescription drug options to treat their medical conditions.  However, if you’ve tried that and come up empty with your doctor, we have a link which might be able to give you a helping hand.  The AARP has launched a new tool to help people look up the prescription drugs that they use and compare it to possible substitutes.

It’s called the AARP Drug Savings Tool. The AARP Drug Savings Tool allows users to select the drug they want to compare from Consumer Reports Health’s database of about 500 drugs in 26 drug classes and provides consumers with “Best Buy” recommendations and a discussion sheet to help guide related conversations with their doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.

For example, we tried entering a 5 mg dosage of Crestor into the AARP Drug Savings Tool, and got quite a bit of information back. Besides telling us that Crestor would run about $166 dollars a month and would reduce LDL cholesterol on average 39% to 46%, the AARP Drug Savings Tool. also suggested the much cheaper alterantives of Lovastatin (average monthly costs ranging from $11 to $51) and Provastatin (average monthly costs of $34 to $47).

We do note, though, that we tried plugging some other prescription drugs like Cozaar into the AARP Drug Savings Tool and didn’t get any search results back, so not every prescription drug is available in the tool. Still, it’s a great resource if you’re researching more affordable prescription drug options, so give it a try!

Have you found a more affordable prescription drug option for your treatment?  Tell us about it!

Related posts:

1. AARP Study: Brand Name Prescription Drug Prices Go Up 8% in Last Year
2. Pharmaceutical Industry Calls AARP Report On Drug Prices Misleading
3. Reminder: $4 Generic Prescription Drugs Are Available Without Health Insurance
4. Is there a Cheaper Answer Than Prescription Drugs?
5. What Is a Prescription Drug Formulary and Why Does It Matter? Diabetics on UnitedHealthcare Find Out