🔍 Key Finding

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (CostPlus) offers significantly greater cost savings for dermatology medications compared to GoodRx, even when accounting for shipping fees.

🔬 Methodology Overview

• Design: Observational cost-analysis comparing medication prices

• Data collection: Prices extracted on November 26, 2023

• Medications: 15 commonly prescribed dermatology medications selected from Dobkin and Zirwas study

• Comparison points: CostPlus prices (with and without shipping) vs. GoodRx prices from New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago

• Analysis: Wilcoxon signed rank exact tests using RStudio V1.4.1106

📊 Evidence

• Average medication cost: $17 (SE $3.22) through CostPlus vs. $31.21 (SE $6.42) through GoodRx (P<.001)

• CostPlus with $2.60 shipping: $19.60 (SE $3.22) - still significantly lower than GoodRx (P<.001)

• CostPlus with $5 shipping: $22 (SE $3.22) - still significantly lower than GoodRx (P=.007)

• Average retail cost of medications: $147.23 (SE $36.54)

• CostPlus average savings: $130.23 (SE $33.78) or 81% off retail

• GoodRx average savings: $116.01 (SE $30.73) or 70% off retail

💡 Clinical Impact

CostPlus offers a viable tool to reduce prescription medication burden within dermatology, especially for uninsured patients or those with high-deductible health plans, while also providing the convenience of shipping all prescriptions directly to patients.

🤔 Limitations

• Observational design with drug prices measured at only a single time point

• Did not fully assess the impact of ordering multiple medications at once

• Did not assess prices from compounding pharmacies, which often offer discounted prices

• Limited generalizability as CostPlus is the first of its kind in the United States

• Certain common dermatology medications (tretinoin, calcipotriene) are not available on CostPlus