[bmarquez]

> Mark Cuban's pharmacy, however, refuses to deal with your insurance

I don't see a problem with this. Some insurance plans are can be hard to deal with. My personal experiences involve requiring step therapy (trying a cheaper, possibly less effective drug) before approving the prescription. Another experience is that a drug may only be covered for one condition but not for another (e.g. finasteride for hair loss vs finasteride for enlarged prostate).

If Cuban wants to avoid the headache of dealing with formulary lists, I don't blame him. Obviously consumers should compare prices whenever possible, but if the difference is only a few dollars I'd probably rather pay Cuban directly than deal with the Walmart retail experience.

[PragmaticPulp]

> My personal experiences involve requiring step therapy (trying a cheaper, possibly less effective drug) before approving the prescription.

FYI, Mark Cuban's pharmacy only deals in generic medications. Most of the "step therapy" programs exist to gate the non-generic medications, so you wouldn't be finding them at Mark Cuban's pharmacy anyway.

Also, you don't need insurance to use a traditional pharmacy. You should still cross-shop online regardless.

I think too many people have misinterpreted Mark Cuban's PR as having solved all of the problems with insurance, but it's really just another retailer of generic medications like countless others online.

They said they plan to do their own manufacturing in the future, but at the moment they're buying from the same wholesalers as all the other online discount pharmacies. They've just attached Mark Cuban's name to this one.

[nimos]

> Most of the "step therapy" programs exist to gate the non-generic medications, so you wouldn't be finding them at Mark Cuban's pharmacy anyway.

I had to go through PA for 2 generic drugs that cost ~10-15 each a month from Costco (according to GoodRX). Cost Plus is actually a bit more expensive with shipping. If its $5 shipping total and not per drug its a small saving but wouldn't count towards my deductible. Was a huge hassle. I'm pretty sure if you were to take the time*wage my pharmacist, my doctor and myself spent on getting it done it would have paid for the prescriptions for at least a decade.

Oh and I'm on a high deductible plan so it will probably never cost them anything because I probably won't hit my coinsurance/out of pocket max.