A local doctor is not only treating patients' ailments, he's looking out for their wallets as well. 

Dr. Dan Hunt says it's been frustrating seeing the strain medications place on patients' budgets, without having any control over the costs. 

Dr. Dan Hunt

"I see the impact of financial stress on people every day," Hunt says, who works out of the C.W Wiebe Medical Centre in Winkler, noting it can cause or exacerbate mental health issues, as well as cause physical symptoms.

However, this past year he's saved patients thousands of dollars by cherry-picking the cheapest, and equally effective, prescription drugs thanks to a new price comparison resource.

"This is one of the only ways that I can alleviate this stress in my role as a doctor," he says.

While switching from brand name to generic substitutions happens automatically at the pharmacy, unless a doctor specifically states no substitutions on the prescription, what Hunt champions is using the cheapest available drug within a class in which all are equally effective. One of the best examples is ACE inhibitors; the cheapest is ramipril at $28/year, the most expensive, enalapril which is $276/year.

"Often the drugs come from a category, they all work in the same way," he explains. "So there's no real reasons to pick one over the other in terms of effectiveness."

He's able to cross reference drug costs easily and quickly using the relatively new resource, the Price Comparison of Commonly Prescribed Medications In Manitoba document. Currently in its fourth edition, the digital document is updated by pharmacists ever year who recognize the challenge for physicians to readily know all medication costs.

Before the price list first came out Hunt says it was very difficult to access medication prices. The most accurate way was to call a pharmacist who would search for a specific drug.

"Doctors had no direct access to prices," he says. "I kind of assumed, before the prices became available, that because they were equally effective, they would be equally priced."

Once he actually saw the list and the differences in prices, sometimes more than a $100 difference, he implemented the list in his own practice and changed over to prescribing the most cost-effective medications, as long as he didn't have to sacrifice quality.

Of the 35 patients he approached on switching to cheaper medications, only one eventually felt they preferred their original brand.

"I haven't really seen a downside to it yet."

Doctors in Winkler and Morden are making use of the annually-updated drug price comparison list

Looking across the province, he notes there's "millions of dollars of savings to be had, both for people and the overall healthcare system."

And the drug price cheat sheet is catching on with his colleagues.

"You need to know it exists... if a doctor has never heard of it, they're not going to look for it."

The key, he says, is integrating the resource into their work flow. Physicians at the C.W Wiebe Medical Clinic have been implementing the document by adding it to their desktops, printing handouts in exam rooms and adding the link to the clinic website.

"Certainly locally I've had a lot of buy-in from other physicians in Winkler and Morden. Once people become aware of this they want to do the right thing for their patients."

Learn more here. 

Or see the price comparison list here.