Never too old to learn; checking facts

This article is actually information derived during a recent illness provide someone with enough curiosity to determine if it might apply to them.

First let me explain the problem that led to my discovery. This year has been devastating on my sinus, nose, throat and ears — anything connected to or part of my head. Allergies are not new to me but usually one of the daily, over-the-counter drugs keeps me going and things return to normal after the first freeze (frost) kills the source of my problem. I am allergic to oak pollen, ragweed and the pollen from many other weeds but seldom have a sustained problem like this year.

Several weeks ago we had other family illnesses and I put off seeking needed professional assistance of our local Northwest Health doctor. A combination of events including extracting a tooth led to an emergency room visit on a Saturday later in the morning. The service was excellent and resulted in two shots of antibiotics and two prescriptions. Being too sick to even discuss the options, I asked them to send them to the large Rogers store of a very well known international retail store which has a pharmacy and is well known for its low price advertising. The cost of the two prescriptions was lost in my desire to clear up the diagnosed upper respiratory infection — which it apparently did.

They recommended a follow-up visit to my primary care physician which revealed a sinus infection not caught at the hospital emergency room. After a CAT scan to be sure there was a condition requiring further treatment and prescriptions once again filled by the big box retailer’s pharmacy, I was referred to an otolaryngologist — that is short for ear, nose and throat. Also when I tallied up the cost of the new drugs — more antibiotics and a series of steroids, it became obvious that this was becoming expensive for a person without a prescription drug insurance plan. It would probably have been expensive with insurance too, but it was not a factor when the shock of this “illness” set in.

Medicare is very good at taking care of the office, hospital and other related expenses and supplemental insurance, though expensive, helps relieve the pain of those bills, but now I’m dealing with the reality that some people face every month “drug costs can add up pretty quickly” and I’m beginning to understand how the big box retailer got so big.

The visit to the ENT specialist went really well and the CAT scan revealed some infection that had not responded to the last round of drugs. You guessed it — more prescriptions. By this time my pocket book (billfold, if you prefer) is feeling the shock of all this, but faithfully I trust the low cost advertising of the big box retailer and presented three prescriptions. Being aware that a culture taken in the ENT office might reveal a strain of infection not covered by the antibiotic, I asked the price of the 10-day supply. The headache got worse, much worse, when the lady informed me the cost of the three items. There was actually a fourth item needed for later. But, being frugal, I declined to fi ll the item which might be replaced half-way through the treatment cycle.

When Dorothy, my wife, and I compared notes later that evening, she suggested we try a local (Pea Ridge) pharmacy for price comparison. Having bought into the pricing policy of the large retailer, I was skeptical but didn’t see any harm in trying. When she checked the local, family-owned pharmacy’s price on the questionable item we were shocked at the difference — it was lower than the source in Rogers — much lower. Assuming there was some error she took the doctor’s prescription to the store and sure enough the local pharmacy’s price was half the price quoted in Rogers. This was a signifi cant saving because these were very expensive (in my eyes) pills and 20 were required. Determined to see if this was a single item variation, she checked one of the other items purchased at the big retailer the previous day and, low and behold, it, too, was half price.

Moral of the story — don’t believe anyone’s advertising without checking it out on multiple items. We frequently fi nd we can purchase items locally at about the same price as stores in Rogers — and our sales tax in Pea Ridge is actually less than in Bentonville or Rogers.

Habit has overwhelmed commonsense because I used to ask for a written prescription to “shop around.” As more and more doctors are calling in prescriptions, I got out of that practice — to the detriment of my wallet.

We’re never too old to learn and finding what I need at a lower price locally makes re-learning practical. Check me out on this and see if you can save some money for your efforts.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/23/2013