6/30/09: “$700 for a prescription! Is that right?”

“Julie,” one of the medical assistants hands me a chart with a phone message note paper clipped to it. The note says a patient called in wanting to know if the $700 price tag for the medication he just purchased was correct. My knee jerk reaction is “there is no way that can be correct,” but I pull out the palm pilot and call up e-pocrates which has all kinds of information about drugs including the MSRP of each drug. Aldara; for actinic keratosis or basal cell carcinoma. $524.96!! And this isn’t a life-time supply, this is 24 packets of cream to treat actinic keratosis or basal cell carcinoma for 1 month.

I sit back in disgust over the pharmaceutical companies and the incredible prices they can charge for medications; but I can also taste the amazing scallop and prawn curry dinner I had last night for free thanks to the manufacturers of Pioglitazone. I guess I am submitting to THE MAN already, but I am also a poor grad student. Maybe I will find my morals again once I am less than $150,000 in debt again…