Do the math: Same drugs, lower price
Pharmacist fights high costs by packaging generic options
WALTHAM -- While politicians from Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill try to sort out America's healthcare mess, Waltham pharmacist Stephen Bernardi has come up with an answer to his piece of the problem.
He has cut prices.
Bernardi, working with doctors at a community clinic across the street from his Johnson Drug, came up with a list of about 200 commonly prescribed generic drugs that he offers at a discount under what he calls the 1-Price Prescription Drug Program.
Most of the drugs in the program cost $18 for 100 pills. For example, Metformin hydrochloride, a diabetes drug, cost $18 at Johnson compared with $88.19 at Walgreens and $85.59 at
The discounted drugs at Johnson are available to everyone, insured or not, with no income requirements, as long as they are purchased in the quantities listed. Bernardi said some insured people have taken advantage of the program because the price is less than their insurance policy's copay for the same quantity.
''One of my philosophies is that to those who have been given the most, the most is expected," said the 51-year-old Bernardi, who lives in Framingham. ''I try to remind myself of that on a regular basis."
Bernardi said his annual sales are in the $3 million to $5 million range, excellent figures for an independent community pharmacy, according to Northeastern University pharmacy professor Nate Rickles.
The 1-Price program started with an offhand comment at a gathering of local officials, business people, and healthcare workers shortly after the Joseph M. Smith Community Health Center in Waltham opened in 2004.
Bernardi asked its associate medical director, Dr. Felice Meadow, how he could help the center in its mission to provide healthcare to the poor and uninsured in the Waltham area.
''Off the top of my head, I said to him, 'Well, can you make medications affordable to my patients?' And he said, 'Let me think about that,' " Meadow said of their initial conversation. She wasn't really expecting a solution. ''I thought I was being funny," she said.
But a few days later, Bernardi called with a plan. He and Meadow would come up with a list of commonly prescribed generic drugs that his pharmacy would offer at reduced cost to anyone who needed them.
Together, Bernardi and Meadow selected about 200 generic drugs that Bernardi agreed to supply at a discount. Some of them represent older therapies but are ones that work as well or, for some people, better than name-brand treatments currently available, Bernardi said.
Bernardi said he cut prices by as much as 90 percent for the drugs on the program's list.
He noted that standardizing the quantity at 100 pills saves labor costs: Rather than filling the prescription monthly, he's doing it quarterly. He's also cut his profit margin. But he is attracting more customers to his store, which also sells homeopathic remedies, herbal supplements, and orthopedic supplies.
''We're forsaking the profit," he said, ''but we're doing that for the right reason.
''There's no harm done [to his business]. It's really helping; it's putting us out there."
Bernardi said he had filled about 370 prescriptions through the program, which begin last April. He said customers have come from as far away as Attleboro, Revere, and Woburn.
The Smith Community Health Center honored Bernardi in October with its annual Community Champion Award.
Dr. Carroll Eastman, medical director at the Smith Health Center, said that for patients with conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, the consequences of a missed pill are serious.
''What you're really talking about is a much shorter lifespan, and one much more afflicted with disability," Eastman said.
Massachusetts trade groups and pharmacy experts called the 1-Price program unique.
Carmelo Cinqueonce, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Pharmacists Association, said he wasn't aware of any similar programs offered by pharmacies in Massachusetts. ''It sounds like a positive thing. It should be something that other pharmacies look at and mirror in their communities for a certain segment of the population that can't afford prescription drugs."
Bernardi and his wife, Diane, bought Johnson Drug in 1987 after having worked for several chains. ''After filling 200 prescriptions a day, I asked myself, 'Why do I want to be a machine?' " Bernardi said in a 1990 interview with the Globe.
Sixteen years later, he is certain he made the right choice.
''The reason you get into business is of course to make money for yourself, but it's also to give back to the community," Bernardi said. ''Before I came here, I worked in the South End in Boston. The poorest people were always the most dependent on the pharmacist."
Stephanie V. Siek can be reached at ssiek@globe.com. 
