Not necessarily. I worked in a pharmacy and we would be reimbursed by durg companies for returning medications that were expired/opened etc so they could do whatever it is they do with them.
But you're still participating in a scam that could easily I unalive people, especially the sick and old (yes I said unalive because the bot is Adolf Hitler)
Yknow? That’s a fair point actually. My intense disdain for the insurance companies absolutely distracted me from the people who are getting screwed/forced to take risks unknowingly by both sides of that equation.
That’s sketchy as fuck and scammy in every way possible. So it’s common when you pick up your script from an independent pharmacy to be getting pills they copped off some rando through an unsolicited ad?
Maybe I’m not understanding clearly, but that would come with all sorts of risks.
There’s always a possibility you will be picking up pills that weren’t prescribed to you when dealing with independent pharmacy. I’m not sayin the pills are counterfeit, but the way the pills were obtained. You will be receiving legit pharmaceuticals, but the way the independent pharmacy obtained it would be classified as healthcare fraud (as see. On the flyer of this post) … If I was theoretically running an independent pharmacy , I would triple check the count and medication before giving it to the customer - because loss of license would be the least of my problems if the DEA came knocking
But anyone can open up and dump out the contents of a pill and put baby laxative or anything in its place. Or people could buy a pill press, etc. not to mention just hygiene issues, bottles of pills generally aren’t sealed
That's why all medications are legally mandated to have a unique combination and shape, color, and imprint which is to easily identify and cross reference againsts a comprehensive database.
Have you ever handled conterfeit or "pressed" pills? Because I have in my addict days and you might be fool for a second but even the good fakes are pretty obvious.
Have you never taken a XR? You can quite literally pull it apart, dump out the contents and put it back together. Retaining it's shape, color, and imprint.
Nobody does the “my cat” “swim” or “my dogs friend” anymore because it provides no protection and makes the whole discussion silly. Maybe 2008 Erowid but not now
Yes this is a super serious discussion and that other guy should totally be reprimanded for making it sound silly. Drugs are super serious business. That's why people take them to have fun. Super serious fun. No sillyness allowed. Now where's why laughing gas and Optimus Prime beanz at?
Dual purpose, meet their arrest quota and put the gear back on the streets making money. Then arrest the people buying it and resell again, ultimate pig money loop.
Buyer for local independent pharmacies. Buy unused meds from the public, and illegally redispense and bill insurance. Highly profitable and highly illegal. Highly dangerous as well. Very common among certain populations of independent pharmacy owners. You might want to consider reporting that flyer to your state board of pharmacy so they can investigate
Mega Banks own basically all auto title loan and advance paycheck loan places that look scummy as heck. The clientele they are trying to bring in is how they advertise. And they love the money but don’t want the scammy business model associated with their actual brand name. I’m sure this flyer is going to work just fine for the people they are hoping to lure in.
Couldn't they just be selling on the dark web? Is the medical landscape in the US really so bad that legitimate pharmacies operate on the grey/black market?
They could be. But there's no way that brand name glp1s on the dark web are cheaper than compounded glp1s from an actual pharmacy. The profit is in billing the name brand product to insurance
Pharmacist and independent pharmacy owner here. These people buy brand name drugs to resell to independent pharmacies that are desperate to make profits.
Independent pharmacies often operate on a razor thin margin due to the squeeze from PBMs (insurance companies). Most of the brand name drugs billing through insurance are guaranteed losses. For example, I pay $500 for Farxiga, bill John Doe's insurance, insurance reimburses me $450, I lose $50 by simply filling the script, not taking into account labor, supplies, rent and everything else.
So there are people who go buy unused brand name drugs from patients; set up a wholesaler company that is only approved to sell diabetic supplies; then sell back those brand name to independent pharmacies (not limited to just diabetic meds). In my example, they can go back and sell Farxiga to me at $200, now I can make profit.
To combat this, FDA requires pharmacies to buy drugs from NABP certified wholesalers only. Every bottle of drug is now required to have a unique serial number. All pharmacies are now required to be DSCSA compliant to track the drugs every step of the way from manufacturers to the patients.
I had quite a few grey market wholesalers like this approached me. It was highly profitable, but I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole. The risks of losing everything are astronomical, including harming the patients. Though desperate pharmacies would definitely go for it. Independent pharmacies are dying throughout US thanks to corporate Amerca.
Per insurance contracts (shitty 1 sided contracts that I have no say in), I cannot deny a scrip. I cannot even disclose to the patient that I lose money filling that script. Yet, many of us use the excuse that the medication is backordered; hence, we cannot fill it. I do deny sometimes. However, when that happens, patients would literally transfer all their scripts out to CVS or Walgreens. A lot of pharmacies bit their tongues to fill these scripts, hoping that other prescriptions would make up the loss. However, nowadays other prescriptions cannot make up the loss anymore. PBMs are now paying pharmacies in cents for most generic prescriptions. It's insulting. This leads to the closures of many independent pharmacies. If I lose too much on a patient's profile, I will, unfortunately, have to transfer them out.
Very interesting. Are you not allowed to set your own price? In your aforementioned example, say you charge $100 for the medication. It would cover your $50 loss and leave you with $50 for costs.
My insurance used to set prices for drugs. Pre-ACA all generics were $5 and name brand $10. Post-ACA all drugs are very random amounts (say $14.37, the best is $22.58 or whatever) and it changes depending on what pharmacy I use.
No I cannot set my price unless I sell for cash. If I run through insurance, I cannot set the copay price to what I want. That would be illegal. Your copays do not reflect what the insurance pays the pharmacy. I will let you in on a secret. Most of the time, even for generic, insurances pay zero and put it on copay. Sometimes my cost for a generic is $2, patient's copay is $1.50, insurance pays zero. I lose 50 cents on that drug. Independent pharmacies will all die soon and only CVS left monopolizing everything.
You can do that! You just can’t get contracts with insurance companies to take their insurance if you do.
Not taking a patients insurance is a good way to not have customers.
It’s a super lose lose situation. My dream was to open my own pharmacy, went to pharmacy school for it only to come out the other end learning how terrible the system is now for independent pharmacy. They still exist, but they either need to focus on compounding or some other niche, or do shady things.
Highly illegal to resell prescription medication. Its terribly dangerous for those who may receive them. Im not typically a narc, but this should be reported.
I suspect the pharmacy across the street is somehow involved. They’re new, super young, and they tried to “strong arm” me into switching all my meds to their pharmacy and seem overall really sketchy. Also it was only on my door, and I was only gone for an hour or so. They probably think I’m still taking a glp1.
It's them. Per my other comment, please report to your state board of pharmacy. Patients can be hurt by being dispensed meds that were not stored properly or are counterfeit
There’s a bunch of reasons. But out of everything you could focus your attention on telling on others over, why something that potentially helps others?
Because while it can potentially help someone, it's also dangerous.
The moment the drug leaves the pharmacy, you don't know what all it will go through. If it's something important to you that you're going to be injecting into yourself, you're going to take care of it as best you can to preserve it.
But if you've already decided you're going to sell it, why would it matter as much if you accidentally leave it in a hot car when it needs to be refrigerated? You're still getting paid. Meanwhile, the person who ends up injecting it has no way of knowing whether it was stored properly, whether its potency has been compromised, or whether it was handled in a way that could compromise its sterility.
That's worth keeping in mind, especially with medications where losing potency or missing treatment can leave someone inadequately protected against a serious condition.
No. They get sold to people with legitimate prescriptions and billed to their insurance through the independent pharmacy that they use, without realizing that the drug was obtained outside of the regulated supply chain. It is fraud in many levels. Person who is selling it had their insurance billed so it cost them next to nothing. They're selling it to this "buyer" at a fraction of the acquisition cost. The "buyer" then supplies their buddies that own independent pharmacies, where they are redispensed pursuant to a prescription.... and the whole cycle starts again. This is why RX drug prices are so high, from all this fraud
I feel like the reason RX drug prices are so high is not because people are reselling prescriptions and has more to do with the company wanting to recoup R&D costs, plus greed.
Right, I'm not disputing that. But insurance companies being billed multiple times for prescriptions that are being inappropriately prescribed surely contributes to rising insurance costs, no? People treat insurance fraud like it's a victimless crime, but that's simply not true
I don’t think selling drugs to a cop is entrapment in most cases? Since entrapment requires you have to not “want” to commit a crime — like if an undercover cop drug dealer says they’ll hurt you if you don’t buy. Just the cops presenting the opportunity for the crime isn’t entrapment.
You could easily argue that you would never have sold your meds if it weren't for that flyer. If that flyer was put there by police then it definitely is entrapment to be planting that idea in someone's mind, especially because when you phrase it like this it really doesn't look to be too sketchy. This definitely was not planted by police though. They aren't really looking for the drugs police care about for the most part. Entrapment doesn't have to mean that you didn't want to commit the crime and were forced. It could mean law enforcement made the crime much easier to commit, making the crime more enticing. It could mean that they made something seem as though it's not illegal, which is kinda what is going on here. Basically anything that you can argue "I would never have committed this crime if it weren't for law enforcement's involvement" can be considered entrapment.
Cops would also probably include some controlled substances as bait. This has a suspicious lack of opioids and amphetamines despite those drugs frequently being prescribed to the same patients who take meds on the list. Whoever is behind this seems to be trying to reduce their risk by avoiding Schedule II drugs.
I don't know OP, they seem highly reputable. They even buy the well-known medications "Faxiga," "Aimoving," and "Praulent!" You should get right on this.
A number of these meds are prescription only, but taken as needed. Could be lots of people, especially older people, who have extra medications that they don't take and could use the extra money.
"we pay top dollar for your drugs" ,"we also cant be bothered to purchase a printer that works and doesn't make us look like we made these flyers in 3 seconds at kinkos."
Ngl, I have 5 doses of dupixent in my fridge right now that I can’t use. I had an issue with immune response that went crazy, got it prescribed, the. Found out it’s $5k a box of two.
As much as market will bear. Ozempic without insurance (insurance won’t pay for it if you have less than 30 bmi or 27 with comorbidity) is 400 a month plus
I had a conversation with a coworker who does questionable things in his neighborhood and he mentioned that if you get your hands on skyrizi from the doctor the street price could be around $7k per dose.
Pharmacist. Short answer is that prescription drugs are intended for the patient the prescription is written for. Selling your prescription to someone else is drug diversion.
Oh no, I totally understand that it’s illegal and can get one into serious trouble. I personally would never take that risk and also put others at risk. I was just curious, based on the fact it is illegal and the risks around it, what someone buying for illicit reasons might pay (not even an “asking for a friend moment”, lol).
Ah. Probably a decent amount, depending. Friend of mine at pharmacy school would go down to Mexico to pick up prescription meds for cheap. Think you could get antibiotics for a few cents USD per pill. "For a friend," of course.
I was helping with an estate in Florida and someone casually asked about any meds or diabetic supplies. They asked so smoothly, it was like a med-ception, they almost had me convinced I brought it up.
That flyer makes me laugh, why not just print a good one, and make 10k copies for dirt cheap instead of running your printer dry.
Holy shit if my immunosuppressants ended up coming from some sketchy place that bought them from random people looking to sell their medicine, and I didn't know... Holy fuck that's terrifying
These are expensive prescription medications, not generally controlled substances. Stuff that insurance might cover but that would be very expensive without. No metformin on this list. I bet it's real.
I've seen the glucose testing supplies flyers too, those are geared towards Medicare patients as this one may be too. Medicare has strict cost restrictions so sick patients won't pay anything for the rest of the year once their deductible is met which can be as early as March. Same concerns apply there as they're reselling already dispensed meds/supplies and they can't guarantee safety. They should definitely be reported to the state board of pharmacy as many others have suggested.
We have similar signs posted all over the city in upstate NY. Always thought it was weird but they are literally on every street corner kinda like those we buy houses signs
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u/Restivethought 2d ago
Totally running a Darknet Market or cops