Sk8ers4Christ posted:

Here's something that happened to me I've been wondering about :

A doctor writes a prescription for some medication, but tells the patient that they will not send it to the patient's pharmacy. Instead, the doctor knows a pharmacy that can get this medication at a huge discount. They tell the patient they will send the prescription to that pharmacy, and the patient should receive a phone call from the pharmacy the next day to confirm payment and shipping details (pharmacy is in the same state, hours away).

The pharmacy calls the patient the next day. They never ask for insurance information. The patient pays the pharmacy directly. The cost of the medication is much, much cheaper than what it normally retails for. It's even much cheaper than what the co-pay would be. Medication arrives. It's not a generic version, and everything seems correct.

The benefit to me is obvious. Something that would have cost me a $200 co-pay ended up being less than $40. I'm just wondering what kind of deal the doctor and pharmacy have going on where they're able to pull this off and profit from it.