Dan East

I know, this sounds like spam, but it’s not. I’m a software developer, and on occasion I take on some side jobs outside my normal work. One of these little jobs was porting a pharmacy card website from ASP to PHP so it could be moved to a new server. The guys in Colorado I did the work for are a great bunch of people who are extremely benevolent in nature. They arranged a prescription card for people who don’t have health insurance or any other type of prescription benefits, and set up a website to make obtaining the card extremely easy. This card is the exact same type of card that businesses pay for as part of their employee benefits package. There are no strings attached – you don’t even have to enter your name if you don’t want to (if you do enter your name it will be printed on the card, which simply looks more professional). The website will generate a PDF document that you view and print from your home computer. Just cut out the card (it actually prints two – one with your name if provided, and a blank one you can give away or use as a spare), and show it the next time you get a prescription filled.

I’ve used the card a few times, and on an antibiotic it saved around 50% at Wal-Mart. On another prescription it saved around 35% at CVS. So it was definitely worth the slight effort it took to print the thing out.

Again, this is not spam. There are no strings attached. You do not have to register, provide a mailing address, enter an email address or even enter your name.

If you’re interested, click here and follow the instructions: RxSaver Pharmacy Card.

Also, if you are part of a non-profit organization that would like to issue these cards, there is information on the website concerning custom branding, allowing you to issue cards with your own logo. It is also possible to obtain your own “Rx Bin”, which allows your organization to track how often your cards are utilized, just like a large business that issues prescription cards for its employees.

Do you have a bank card that moonlights as a Credit Card, Debit Card and ATM card all in one? If so a fierce battle is raging to try and coax you into using your card in a specific way, and you probably don’t even know it. The event that prompted me to write this article was my last fast food purchase at a restaurant called Sonic. Sonic is a drive-up restaurant, which has separate menus and ordering terminals for each parked car. You push a button, place your order, and pay via Credit Card or Debit Card at the integrated Point Of Sale (known as POS) terminal. Of course you can also pay the car-hop cash if you are so inclined. Sonic must have recently updated the software on their POS terminals, because the process of paying is drastically different. With the previous software, a menu appeared on an LCD display with options for “Credit”, “Debit” and “Gift Card”. Customers would select the payment method, then swipe the card. The “new and improved” version simply asks you to swipe your card, without providing any options. After swiping my card the POS then asked “Do you know your PIN? YES / NO” What? Do I know my PIN? Yes, I do, thank you very much. I promptly pressed “NO”, the terminal said “Authorizing”, and my food arrived shortly (pretty dang fast, actually). So why wasn’t I fooled into demonstrating my bank card prowess, and that yes, I do indeed know my PIN? Because my bank beat Sonic to the punch, and has already bribed me into using my card as a Credit Card. Each time I use my card as a Credit Card I earn points – wonderful points that I can redeem on cheap Made in China junk from a catalog I receive once a month.

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