Mark Cuban’s Pharmaceutical Cost Plus Company
This post is kind of a commercial. I am detailing another way you may be able to fulfill your pharmaceutical prescriptions. The catch right now is having common drugs. Mark Cuban has said he will add more of he less common drugs as they negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies.
I have the United Healthcare – Walgreens plan. They issue a 90-day supply of my generic drugs. Up till this year, they would containerize them properly. These were Tier 1 drugs except for one which was a Tier 2 dugs. Nothing serious. The plan cost is ~$28/ month plus deductibles and copays. This year became more expensive then last year with the deductibles and copays never fulfilling the limits and the copays increasing. The mispackaging of the drug and their failure to answer my letter convinced me to look for an alternative.
I was fine until they started packaging my 5 and 10 mg tablets in pill containers which were meant to hold 800-1200 tablets of the same size. The copays and deductible ($300/year) is not small and I would never fulfill the limit. My complaint at Walgreen HDQTRs was ignored. The drug store also said they would give me a smaller container to repackage the pills. I considered their solution to be nonsense.
Their is an opportunity here which Mark Cuban has recognized. Going up against the big companies and getting the drugs is going to be a struggle over time. I think he has the funds and band with publically to be successful at it.
A little bit of info. Mark Cuban’s upstart company is mail order. The deductibles and copays are far less (nothing) than the drug stores who monopolize the market (think CVS, Walgreens, etc.). It is cost plus 15%. I am going to try it. Keep you all posted on any success.
I have also found CEO Adam Fein of Drug Channels Institute (below) to be extremely knowledgeable on the pharmaceutical industry beyond my limited knowledge. Just starting to get the hang of it so I can read his words and reiterated them at AB. In this snippet of a post, he took the opportunity of meeting with Mark Cuban to discuss Mark’s latest venture. Shy on detail for now.
CEO Drug Channels Insitute, Adam Fein on LinkedIn: Discussing his meeting with Mark Cuban to learn more about his vision. Adam Fein writing . . .
A meeting with Mark Cuban to learn more about his vision for Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC and how he wants to change the drug channel. Much more to come!
During a recent trip to Dallas, I had the opportunity to sit down with entrepreneur Mark Cuban. We chatted about the complexities and warped incentives of the U.S. drug channel. Mark was kind enough to share his vision for the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company and how he wants to change the system.
We also took this great photo (above), which has become my most liked and viewed post on LinkedIn. At the time of this article’s publication, the post had more than 200,000 views and 2,300 reactions.
Drug Channels: Drug Channels News Roundup, April 2023: OptumRx’s Biosimilar Nonsense, Accumulator Inequity, Amazon Redux, AFPs, and My Meeting with Mark Cuban, CEO. Dr. Adam Fein.
Recent Visit of Mark Cuban at The Daily Show.
If you are searching for a lower cost on a drug. look here: Available Medications | Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company
I have been complaining about oversized pill bottles for about 4 decades. The first excuse was standardization, fewer different bottle sizes to stock. The second excuse was automated dispensing, one bottle size for 1-50 pills, another for 50-100 regardless of the actual pill size. I gave up asking why around the turn of the century. The size bottle varies almost every refill, and sometimes I get two bottles when the pills would easily fit in just one.
One thing I dearly wish for is that the medications I take could be dispensed in the dosages I take. I take 6 medications. I have to cut pills in half for 3 of them. One of them is barely over 1/8 inch diameter to start with. One is football shaped. The last one tends to crumble.
As for cost, my plan used to say one co-pay per 100 day supply. If fewer pills were dispensed they prorated the co-pay. But then the wording was changed to “up to a 100 day supply” and a prescription was considered “filled” if 90% of the quantity the doctor prescribed were dispensed. Opiates acquired their own sets of rules from the feds and the state, which also had the effect of more than tripling my copays for that drug. And instead of getting all my prescriptions renewed at the same time, the 90’s and the 100’s only sync up every couple of years.
It does seem that the pharmaceutical industry considers everything except the patient.
Jane:
Oversized pill containers cause damage to the pills besides creating medical dust. It is not a good practice. United Healthcare-Walgreens has been charging deductibles for Tier ones under the guise of reaching the limit. I will never reach the limit so it will not be an advantage for me. I have written them with no reply . . . wrong move on their part. I will attach a copy of the letter, the reasons why, and send it to each member of the Board of Directors. I did this once before. I got an answer back and a positive one at that.