drug question - texaspsych

[ArchivalUser]

Does anyone know what is generic drug and formulary drug? I do not understand what are they

[ArchivalUser]

they both represent 2 different things; generic vs brand/ trade name
formulary vs non formulary; this often is used by insurance companies or a pharmaceutical company to represent a list of medications they supply for eg my insurance company have a list of their formulary drugs which means that if my PCP prescribes a medication which is not in the list of formulary drugs, the percentage i will have to pay will be much more than what my copay would have been if my PCP prescribed from their list of formulary drugs.

for e.g my doctor prescribes Lyrica, my insurance refuse to pay 100% but will pay 100% for Nervalin. both are pregabalin but nervalin is UMR's formulary drug while lyrica is not

[ArchivalUser]

Thank you so much!

Couple of questions.. Please correct me if I am wrong;

pregabalin= generic
lyrica, nervalin= brand names

Also, does the formulary list usually include different brand names of a specific generic medication or does the formulary list include multiple generic names? such as mevacor and lipitor for hyperlipidemia?

[ArchivalUser]

yes, pregabalin is generic while lyrica is brand name.
i think it will be safe to say that formulary names is synonymous to brand names but it can still contain different generics as well as brand names.

I said synonymous to brand names because most insurance companies have a list of formulary drugs that are cheaper for them to cover but not necessarily because of efficacy or less side effects therefore they gravitate more to a particular brand name while companies like cvs might want to carry more drugs that have less side effect potential & more potent. therefore cvs's formulary list will have both different generics as well as brand names.

[ArchivalUser]

wow, that is really helpful. Thanks again