Cleveland Plain Dealer: Free drug samples may come with high costs

09/08/2009

Patients should be aware that the free drug samples their doctors may give them are often the most expensive and least-tested drugs on the market, writes columnist Diane Suchetka in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Suchetka talks to a series of prescription drug experts who point out the hidden costs in otherwise free drug samples: they are always brand-name drugs, which tend to be more expensive than generic equivalents; they are newer, and may pose greater safety risks; and your insurance plan may not cover thant drug, leaving you with a higher co-pay when the sample course runs out.

But the Pew Prescription Project's Allan Coukell says that sometimes the newest drug is exactly what you need. He cautions, though, that because drugs being sampled often haven't been taken by enough people over time to reveal potential side-effects, "[w]e just don't know the whole story."

For more on prescription drug samples, go to the fact sheet.