There are all kinds of ways to get cheaper prescription drugs.

People recommend buying the higher dose of a drug and cutting it in half. This is a good idea for only a few drugs.

Drug manufactures have many different ways of pricing drugs. The few drugs that are priced the same regardless of the strength are a good way to save money by splitting the pill.

However studies have shown that pill splitting can result in up to a 20% variance in dose. So if you split a 200mg pill in half for a 100mg dose you may end up with 80mg for one dose and 120mg for a second dose. If you are taking the dose once a day, for a month, then taking 80mg one day and 120mg the next probably won’t hurt you.

The problem arises when a person sits down and cuts ALL of their pills in half when they first receive their prescription. It is then possible to get the 120 mg doses at the first of the month and the 80 mg doses at the end of the month and by the end of the month the person is not getting enough medicine.

Also tablets often have a coating to help prevent the medication in the tablet from getting exposed to the air, by cutting all the pills before they are to be taken will cause the medication in the tablet to degrade. Further splitting multiple pills at once, will result in many pills turning to powder.

Because your pharmacist works with pills all day, he or she knows their pricing structure, as well as the secrets to finding cheaper drugs.

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