Discount drug cards coming from Larimer County

FORT COLLINS – In an era of continually escalating health-care costs, Larimer County is stepping up to try to help its citizens cope.

Through its membership in the National Association of Counties, Larimer County is planning to offer drug discount cards that could save cardholders up to 20 percent or more on their prescriptions.

And the cards are free.

“It’s a very popular program,” says Andrew Goldschmidt, NACo’s director of marketing. “We’ve been besieged with calls.”

Goldschmidt said the discount drug program started as a pilot in 2004 in partnership with CVS Caremark, the nation’s largest pharmacy chain.

“The pilot program was so successful that our board of directors approved it for all of our members in late 2005,” he said.

Goldschmidt said through March 2008, cardholders have saved an estimated $83 million on 7.5 million prescriptions for an overall average savings of 22.4 percent on drug costs. He said the program has been adding counties at the rate of about 500 per year, with 2,360 of NACo’s 3,066 member counties signed up at last count.

Goldschmidt said NACo’s partnership with CVS Caremark, which has signed up 59,000 pharmacies across the nation and most of the major pharmacies in Larimer County, is the key to the savings.

Number-driven offer

“They negotiate on our behalf and their sheer numbers help us get these discounts,” he said.

Caremark has 6,200 stores in 38 states and reported net revenue of about $37 billion in 2006. Goldschmidt said Caremark benefits by earning a small transaction fee on cardholder prescriptions, payments from drug manufacturers and ancillary purchases by pharmacy visitors.

“They’re hoping to get more business through more customers making other purchases while visiting the pharmacy,” he said.

Wynette Reed, Larimer County Human Resources director, said the county won’t incur any expense by taking part in the program other than posting details about it on the county’s Web site and distributing the cards to county offices, health-care sites, senior centers, libraries and other locations where they may be picked up.

Reed said the cards are even good for pets that need the same prescriptions as humans.

“If you get a prescription from the vet that’s a human prescription, you can use it for that, too,” she said.

Reed said the cards will be most helpful to those who are uninsured or underinsured but can be used by anyone, including those with insurance that doesn’t cover a particular drug they may need.

The county is expecting to begin offering the cards by mid-June, Reed said, and a full list of local participating pharmacies will be included in the information packet that will accompany the cards.

The cards will not, however, be offered in Weld County – at least for the foreseeable future.

Don Werden, Weld County administrator, said he was not familiar with the NACo offering. “We haven’t really looked at it,” he said. “But I’ll be talking to Frank Lancaster (Larimer County manager) about it.”

Rennels leads effort

Larimer County Commissioner Kathay Rennels said she’s been pushing for the county to offer the cards since they first became available, but a series of circumstances – including a new commissioner coming aboard to replace one who resigned – kept putting the cards on a back burner.

There was also the “too-good-to-be-true” aspect of the cards that took a little time to absorb, Rennels noted. “When I first heard about it I thought there had to be a catch,” she said.

But Rennels said she knew CVS Caremark had a good reputation and that everything would be supplied through NACo, and after talking to other counties that were enrolled, became a fervent promoter of the idea.

“It’s going to be something we’re all going to benefit from,” she said. “Just seeing the medical crisis that’s going on and the price of prescription drugs is really incredible. This gives us the opportunity to offer it to any citizen of Larimer County that’s interested in it. You don’t even have to sign up – you just pick up your card and use it.”

NACo’s Goldschmidt said his organization is providing the cards after member surveys indicated they were something that would be in demand.

“We were hearing, through our surveying, that counties were being asked if they could do anything with these rising drug prices,” he said. “Our goal and our mission is to provide solutions to our counties. By helping our members, we’re helping the general public.”

Goldschmidt said the program just keeps riding a wave of popularity. “It continues to grow and I keep thinking it’ll subside but it doesn’t.”

Steve Porter covers health care for the Northern Colorado Business Report. He can be reached at 970-221-5400, ext. 225, or at sporter@ncbr.com.

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