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Health knowledge made personal
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Health knowledge made personal
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My doctor recently prescribed Lovaza and provided a "copay card" for an up-to-$20/mo discount at the pharmacy. Currently unemployed, I have a PPO health plan for which I pay 100%. He described Lovaza as superior to the generic fish oil tabs I've been taking, and the copay card discount may bring the cost down to "about the same" as the generics when compared on an active ingredient (EPA & DHA) basis.
REALITY: My discounted cost for 1 month supply of Lovaza (120 tabs = 4/day) was $40.74. At my prescribed dosage of 4 pills daily (3,360mg/day of DHA+EPA) my pill cost per month (PCPM) is $10.20. The most expensive of 3 OTC generics I subsequently examined (Spring Valley brand, Walmart prod ID#10316851) - adjusted for an equivalent daily dosage of EPA & DHA at 3,420mg/daily - is $4.17 PCPM. Less than half that of Lovaza. How many pills of the Spring Valley OTC product above would you think I need to take daily to equal the EPA+DHA load of 4 "prescription-strength" Lovazas? Tens? Hundreds?
Five.
I won't be renewing my Lovaza prescription and I will be showing my figures to & telling everyone I know - starting with my doctor - that I think prescription fish oil is a rip-off *even when discounted*! To people like "gb b." who think they have "earned" some specious "right" to irrational market behavior which contributes to drug price inflation for everyone: no single raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood, either.
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2 Comments
It is FDA-approved for treatment of high triglycerides (>500 mg/dl). In their marketing, they claim "Unlike LOVAZA, dietary supplements are not FDA approved to treat any disease." They also highlight the "patented five-step" purification process that eliminates any concerns over mercury or pesticide residues.
What does Lovaza cost? In Milwaukee, it costs about $70 per capsule per month (PCPM). Most people are taking four capsules per day: $280 per month, or $3360 per year to obtain 3360 mg of EPA + DHA per day. (Funny coincidence with the numbers.)
Did you catch that? $3360 per year, just for one person to take Lovaza.
What if I instead went to Costco and bought their high-potency fish oil. This is also an ethyl ester form. It costs $14.99 for 180 capsules, or $2.50 PCPM; each capsule contains 684 mg EPA + DHA. I would therefore have to take five capsules per day to obtain the same 3360 mg EPA + DHA per day. This would cost me 5 x $2.50 = $12.50 per month, or $150 per year.
$3360 per year vs. $150 per year to obtain the same dose of omega-3 fatty acids, or a 22.4-fold difference.
Lovaza is FDA-approved for treatment of high triglycerides. But I am seeing more and more people take it for other reasons at this four-capsule-per-day dose. Regardless, this "drug" is adding $3360 per year costs to our healthcare. A school teacher, for instance, recently commented to me that she didn't care about the costs, since her insurance (in Milwaukee county, teachers have unbelievably generous healthcare coverage) covers Lovaza. I've heard this from others: insurance covers it, so they don't care how much it costs.
Guess who eventually has to pay the $3360 per year per person costs? Yup, you and me. We all bitch and moan about the costs of healthcare and health insurance, but many of us are more than willing to shift the costs to our friends and neighbors to save a few bucks. You think Lipitor makes a bundle of money for Pfizer at about $120 per month? Lovaza is making a bundle of money for GlaxoSmithKline, and all because people are cheap and willing to selfishly shift costs to other people.
Keep in mind that $3360 per year is just for fish oil. It's not for surgery, it's not for hospital care, it's just for stinking fish oil.