What Is The Best Generic Version Of Wellbutrin Xl - Watson Or Anchen? (Page 46)

My doctor will not prescribe generic Wellbutrin XL but my insurance will no longer pay for brand name drugs. I will have to pay about $7000 per yer for what I am taking now (3 of the 150mg Wellbutrin XL brand name per day). I am reading that the problem with the generics is the time release mechanism and not the drug itself and that some are better than others. Anybody have experience with the generics made by Watson and /or Anchen?

REPLY

REPORT

Where do you get wellbutrin brand for $50 a month... what dosage? ??

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Direct Success Pharmacy. 30 tablets. 150 mg or 300 mg. Your choice.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I get the Wellbutrin ER 300 mg, 30 tablets at Direct Success Pharmacy for $50 a month.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 1

What country or state are you in? In nyc (yeah I know things always cost more here) I paid $400 last month for 30- 300 xl with original medicare. What are the words/numbers/and color of the pills, capsules, etc. I had a horrible experience w/ Tevas outsourced wellbutrin.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Sami, read down a few pages on the thread. Valeant runs a program where they sell real Wellbutrin through their mail-order pharmacy. It's paid for in 3 ways:

1) If you have insurance that pays, they submit the claim, and collect many hundreds of dollars from your insurance company. Per month. They then LIE and say that they collected a several-hundred-dollar copay from you, and then they don't. (The so-called "no cost to you" option.)

2) You leave insurance totally out of it, and give them your credit card number, which they bill $50 to each month. (I then send my receipt to my insurance company, and they send me a check for $35. 70-30 is the coverage of my insurance plan, and there is no communication between Direct Success and my insurance company.)

3) If you can't afford the $50, you can apply for their patient assistance program, and they will charge you less.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

"There is no communication between Direct Success and my insurance company."
Really?

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

>> "There is no communication between Direct Success and my insurance company."
> Really?

Well not since last year when Direct Success charged my insurance company 500-some-dollars and then reversed it and charged me $50.

If anyone at my insurance company were to be paying attention, they would be very happy to be getting it for $35/mo rather than hundreds of dollars per month.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Your insurance company is totally cognizant of the Direct Success Pharmacy. Insurance companies are in the business of making a profit, not taking a loss. What you don't know are the negotiations and price fixing that are going on behind the scenes. I can give you a perfect example of price fixing. My wife's insurance company mail order pharmacy charges a copay of $18 for a 90 day supply of pantaprazole sodium. K-Mart, which is a preferred pharmacy within her insurance company's network, charges $344 for the same when going through her insurance company. K-Mart charges my wife $14.87 for the same without insurance. She pays the $14.87 without going through her insurance. Somehow, her insurance company has cut a deal with the suppliers to lock out K-Mart from charging less than $344 when going through their insurance, presumably to try and force people to use the insurance company's mail order pharmacy.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I was just told by Direct Success Pharmacy that since I am on Medicare I am no longer eligible for the $50.00 per month Wellbutrin XL 300mg.
They could not explain why.
Does anyone know why, and if there is a way around this?

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Take one 150 mg tablet and one 300 mg tablet of Wellbutrin XL per day instead of three 150 mg tablets. It'll cost you $1,200 a year from the Direct Success Pharmacy. TEVA Budeprion XL duplicated 100% the effects of Wellbutrin XL for me but at a much lower cost. The time release mechanism difference between TEVA and Wellbutrin was totally meaningless to me. I felt no difference at all between TEVA and Wellbutrin. But the Keystone Cops of the FDA pulled TEVA from the market and kept Anchen on the market. Anchen was a disaster for me. Never used Watson so can't comment on it. But you won't know if Watson or Anchen will work for you until you try them.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

Mike, ask them to take all indications of medicare off your account and simply put down that you are uninsured.

We'll see what happens with my account -- is this just medicare/medicaid/VA or is it people who have any insurance coverage? (I told them to take my insurance out of it and gave them my credit card number, which has been working well for the last 14 months. Last month I figured out how to get $35 reimbursed from insurance and the $15 co-pay from my flexible spending account.) Direct Success has been under serious attack for their slimy business practices. It may be that the government has told them that they have to choose between the insurance company ripoff sales and the $50 residual income that they get from us. Of course they will dump us in a second if we get in the way of them ripping off insurance companies.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I'd prefer to have Direct Success ripping off insurance companies than insurance companies ripping off me.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 1

The only money that insurance companies have is the money that they get from you and me. So Direct Success ripping off insurance companies IS Direct Success ripping off you and me. And all of those patients taking the "zero cost to the patient" option are HELPING Direct Success rip off you and me.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 1

It would be a little hard for Direct Success Pharmacy to rip either me or my insurance company off when my insurance company won't carry brand Wellbutrin at all. If I want brand Wellbutrin, I have to pay for it 100% out of my own pocket and that's the way I want it. I had other insurance long before Direct Success Pharmacy came along and I was paying more out of pocket then than what I'm paying now with Direct Success Pharmacy. If your insurance company covers brand Wellbutrin at all and it costs you more out-of-pocket than you would pay with Direct Success Pharmacy, then you're being ripped off by your insurance company. I wouldn't want any insurance company which covers brand Wellbutrin for this very reason. My wife's insurance company is trying to rip her off right now, even after paying premiums, by charging her more for her medication (not Wellbutrin) then she can pay out-of-pocket with a local pharmacy. Direct Success Pharmacy has nothing to do with her medication.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I've cash/self paid through that service for a year and loved it ($50/month), but was informed this month that those with federally funded insurance, including Tricare (military, what I have), Medicare and Medicaid can no longer get that discount, even though we don't claim it through our insurance. Tricare doesn't cover brand name AT ALL, and only covers the generic at 50%, which is still expensive. That takes my price for brand name from $50/month to $57 PER PILL. Three different generics have messed me up in the last 6 years. I was lucky enough to be one of the first TEVA recipients in 2010! Yay! That just about killed me and maybe my toddler thanks to my daily afternoon rage. I'm so frustrated. I guess I'm going to try Canada next. I'm scared of that too. What a racket.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

TEVA Budeprion XL is the only generic that ever worked for me and many others. The FDA (aka, "I'm the government and I'm here to help you") pulled it from the market and forced me and many others into generics which were disasters. The FDA came up with a justification why they pulled TEVA but not a peep out of them about all the other generics they left on the market which don't work. The FDA's shovel must be wearing pretty thin by now.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

"Three different generics have messed me up in the last 6 years." Not to keep beating a dead horse, but if you could sue the government (which you can't) the FDA would have had a legal suit brought against them a long time ago. If a private company had deliberately withheld information from the public about the dangers of all generic forms of Wellbutrin and the fact that these were not the equivalent of Wellbutrin, this would have been the case. I don't know about Tricare, but I believe if you drop your Part D Medicare coverage then Direct Success Pharmacy will cover you. I would have done this from day one if it were not the case that if I ever had to go back on a Part D Medicare prescription drug plan then I would incur a penalty. I'm only on two maintenance prescription drugs at this time, Wellbutrin XL and Lamotrogine (generic Lamictal). My out-of-pocket annual costs for these medications without insurance would be less than $1,200. If I can get an exception from my insurance company, my annual out-of-pocket costs for Wellbutrin XL would be around $4,500. Don't know yet if I'm going to try and pursue this route. I'm planning on letting my current supply of Wellbutrin run out and go on PAR generic. If I don't go too non-linear (aka, bipolar disorder) on PAR, I may stick with it. It's a trade-off between mental well being and shelling out $4,500 dollars. The only way the cost of brand Wellbutrin will come down is when insurance companies refuse to cover it or refuse to pay the high cost of it. It's insurance companies that are driving up the cost of Wellbutrin. Valeant is probably laughing at them.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

I was also told I can't get mine through direct success anymore. I even asked her to just change my info to "no insurance" and she said she couldn't because we were on a recorded phone call. HOWEVER, I just found Canadadrugstop and a 90 day supply of brand name Wellbutrin XL 300mg is $117 plus $10 shipping! So suck it Direct Success, I found a better deal!

REPLY

Was this helpful? 2

I'm in Texas although any state is eligible.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

The TEVA dumped its concentration of medicine WAY faster than brand, which meant it could not be classified as a bioequivalent generic. Though it worked well for some, it mostly messed people up really badly....people complained for years and were told they were crazy before the TEVA and the FDA tested the 300mg.

REPLY

Was this helpful? 0

FYI: The drug manufacturer Watson bought out Activist. Watson "made a business decision" to no longer produce th...

36 REPLIES

I have been taking diclofenac for about 6 months. Had it filled at 2 different pharmacies who had different suppliers. O...

3 REPLIES

If anyone could help me with just these two...Rhodes or Endo - as those are the only choices I have for right now, I'...

9 REPLIES

Hi - I just got a perscription for the Sun Pharma generic version of Wellbutrin SR (Bupropion HCL SR). Has anyone had su...

83 REPLIES

I had a huge problem with a generic before (TEVA) and have been paying a larger co-pay for brand.....I was wondering if ...

12 REPLIES

I was taking 150 ml of Bupropion SR by Teva for several years and it has stopped working for my depression. Has anyone b...

9 REPLIES

I'm am told by my husband's dad to make my husband take wellbutrin Sr 150 mg ta for his anxiety. But he got gene...

8 REPLIES

I've been taking the generic for Lamictal for about five years. Recently I've been feeling different at about th...

216 REPLIES

I have been tapering off Zoloft 100mg and switching to generic Wellbutrin XL 300mg. I gradually went off the Zoloft over...

12 REPLIES

I was taking the Accord version of Wellbutrin since last December and doing really well on it. Last month I got the Lupi...

1 REPLY