Medications From Other Countries

Patients ask me all the time about getting their medications from other countries. First of all, if you have any type of prescription insurance this doesn’t apply to you. There is no cost savings to obtaining your prescription medications from out of the country. If you are one of the few people who do not have prescription medication coverage, should you use a pharmacy from outside the country? While it might sound like a good idea, it is illegal. Prescription medications cannot be shipped in from outside the country and you as a citizen cannot possess prescription medications from outside our country. The real question is why would you want to? Our government does an outstanding job of maintaining a certain level of quality in our pharmaceutical distribution system. Other countries may or may not hold suppliers to the same standards of quality. Counterfeit drug manufacturers are getting really good at imitating the real deal, and in many cases the only way you will find out that you have been taking one, is at the emergency room where you have been taking because the medicine you have been taking isn’t doing what it is supposed to do, because it really isn’t your medication at all! My best advice is to only use local pharmacies. And as for price? If you have prescription insurance, you probably pay a co-pay each time you visit the pharmacy. That co-pay is the same regardless of which pharmacy you go to. So why would you wait in line at an extremely busy pharmacy where you are just a number and nobody knows your name? A good pharmacist develops a relationship with his or her patients because that relationship leads to better health outcomes!