Queens Drug Stores Violate Price Listing Law

Widespread violations of a state law mandating that pharmacies must post accurate prescription drug prices were found in Queens drug stores, it was charged recently by Public Advocate Mark Green.
The price sampling of ten key medications in Forest Hills, Jackson Heights, and Long Island City revealed non-enforcement and local non-compliance problems:
 Prices were wrong in 14 of the 15 Queens drug stores surveyed.
Six pharmacies had none of the ten prices surveyed correct, while another refused to post the prescription prices.
 One store featured posters with 1993 prices.
Major victims of these "unofficial" price hikes, said Queens Borough President Claire Shulman, are the boroughs 400,000+ over-60 population. "Some of them," she stated, "are forced to choose between medicine or food. Reform is needed."
The 1993 state law, requiring drug stores to post the prices of 150 common drug prescriptions on large cardboard posters, is designed to enable consumers to save money by comparing prices. Under this law, posted prescription prices must be current, since customers are legally required to pay no more than the posted prices.
However, the Public Advocates investigators found that most customers unknowingly paid more for their prescriptions because they asked directly for the prescription price, rather than check the posted prices.
The report also found two built-in discrepancies in the state law. Nearly all the official posters had price changes hand-written over whited-out erasure marks, and were illegible, or posted too far behind the counter. In addition, the list of 150 drugs, issued every five years, becomes obsolete very rapidly because of the introduction of new medications or new medical techniques.
Charging that the state poster law is "bureaucracy at its worst," Green said that the posters, "dont serve consumers and they burden pharmacists with an almost impossible mandate." The law, he said, is ignored by customers, pharmacists and the state.
A concerned State Senator Toby Stavisky stated, "When pharmacies post incorrect prices, consumers are unable to do comparison shopping." The ranking Democrat on the Senates Consumer Protection Committee promised to revise the Drug Posting Law that would be easier to read and frequently updated.
Entitled, "New York Price Posting Law: A Burden With No Benefits," the Public Advocates study had surveyed 15 drug stores in three Queens neighborhoods by student interns.