Get your medicines at right price
The same drug with same composition but named differently is priced by one company several times the price
quoted by another company. And this is beyond the comprehension of
ordinary mortals, because, there was no method by which patients could
unravel this irrational practice shrouded in mystery, till a charitable
organization came out with a website to expose this patently unfair pricing policy of pharmaceutical companies.
This very thoughtful information on online pharmacy is meticulously
provided for the first time by the only website in India launched by
Vinodkumar Memorial Charitable Trust under the name of www.medguideindia.com.
It provides a wide variety of information free of all charges. For
every drug produced in India, such a comparison is available, which is
really a boon to the discerning public.
The online pharmacy website provides information about the drugs, their composition and comparative prices of various brands of the same composition, manufactured or marketed by various pharma companies
in India. It also provides very useful information about indication or
contra-indication of drugs, list of banned drugs as notified by the
government, import of drugs for personal use, etc. The website contains a
wealth of information about immunization, and about health insurance plans, including precautions to be taken while opting for a health plan, etc.
How to get the information?
The website: www.medguideindia.com
Once you go to this online pharmacy website mentioned above, it is easy
to navigate through the site to search for the drug information. The
following steps will get you the required information mentioned above.
1. Go to the home page/drug page of the above website
2. Look for “Rapid search by brand name”
3. Enter the brand name in the search box, then click on ‘submit’
4. You will get full details of the drug mentioned by you. Then you click on the “Active Ingredients (Generic)”
5. There
you will get the details of generic name of the constituents of the
drug. You then click on the “Matched brands with above constituents”
6. You will then get a full list of all brands of the same medicine with full details as mentioned in the above example.
The best way to make use of this information is to take out a print-out
of this full list of brands of the same medicine priced differently and
show it to your physician, who has prescribed the medicine for you, so
as to get a fresh prescription for the same drug at the lowest available
price.
It is possible that the doctors themselves may or may not be aware of this price differential, as most of them go by what the medical
representatives brief them about the drug sold by the company they
represent. It is desirable to consult your doctor with these details as
it is not known whether there could be any difference in the quality of
the drugs dispensed, as unfortunately, there is no systematic inspection
of the manufacturing facilities of the pharma companies by any quality control authority in India, as is done by the Food and Drug Administration of USA.
This information will be very useful and can save a lot of money
for all those who are under continuous medication for considerable
length of time. We should be grateful to the Vinodkumar Memorial
Charitable Trust for collating this information so precisely and
presenting it in such a nice way for the benefit of the public. A great
service to the suffering humanity indeed!
The Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 1995
As per the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 1995, the Government of India has ordered that pricing
of certain essential drugs are to be determined according to the
prescribed formula, but it covers only 76 bulk drugs at present. Even in
the case of these 76 drugs, there is a considerable variation in the prices and there appears to be really no control over the pricing of drugs and it is only an eye wash, serving no useful purpose.
This practice of pricing of drugs at such fancy prices reflects very poorly not only on the ministry of health of the Government of India, but also on the medical
fraternity, who should have unearthed this and put an end to this
obnoxious practice, however legal it may be, by prescribing only the
lowest priced drugs, in the interest of a large number of poor people
suffering in our country.
Let us hope that the powers that be will open their eyes at least now and take steps to abolish such wide disparity in drug pricing and provide succour and relief to the suffering people of our country.
Acknowledgement: Vinodkumar Memorial Charitable Trust Credit : http://www.moneylife.in/