Whenever you have to go to the doctor, it seems like you almost always get a prescription for something or another! Thanks to modern medicine, there’s a pill or injection for just about every sort of infection or virus that we can get, with the exception of a few of the major things that we haven’t been able to solve yet. Most of us take the prescription we’re given, go to the local pharmacy, pay whatever the fee is, take the pills, and go on in life. We don’t think that we could save some money, since we –need- the prescriptions, but there’s a way to get the prescription drugs you need and save money in the process!

Drug companies have a financial incentive for doctors to use their prescriptions, so it makes sense that they’ll do what they can to prescribe their drugs more often. By law they can’t pay the doctors to prescribe drugs, but they can give out free samples to the doctors to give to their patients, and they do it all the time.

Doctors don’t fill prescriptions, and they have no need to keep the prescription samples, so often times you can get all sorts of free samples for a prescription that you need. This will save you from having to go to the drug store at all! After your physician diagnoses you and provides you a prescription, just ask if they have any samples of the drug that you could take. More often than not they have several weeks worth of whatever prescription you need in samples!

In the unlikely event that you can’t fill a prescription in the doctor’s office, call around to a few different drug stores, because the price will vary dramatically. Usually your best bet to get the best prices on prescription drugs are either a mom and pop drug store that’s not affiliated with any chain such as Walgreens or by going to a big box store such as Costco or Wal-Mart. Just call ahead to a few different places and see who has the cheapest price. It’ll only take a few minutes, and could easily save you 50% of the bill for your prescription drugs.

If the price is still too high, you can check and see if there are any generic versions of the drug that can be purchased cheaper, or if there’s any bio-equivalents that you can take which will accomplish the same thing for much less money. Sometimes you can order prescription drugs for much cheaper directly from your health-plan, doing this will save you anywhere from 15%-35% on your prescription drug prices.

If you just take your prescription and head down to the nearest drug store, you are undoubtedly throwing money away. Use free samples, generics, and comparison shop to save upwards of 50% on the cost of prescription drugs.