Iowans have ’til September 29th to claim refunds if they bought two prescription drugs in 1998 or ’99. Attorneys General from Iowa and other states sued the maker of clorazepam and lorazepate after the company cornered the supply of the rare ingredients for the drugs, and dramatically raised prices. The drugs are prescribed for depression, anxiety and Alzheimer’s Disease. Under the legal settlement, the company’s paying Iowa’s Medicaid program half-a-million, and there’s another million available to Iowa consumers who don’t have prescription drugbenefits and ended up paying for the drugs out of pocket. Attorney General Tom Miller says over 11-hundred Iowans have already filed a refund claim.Jerry Karbeling of the Iowa Pharmacy Association says your druggist can help you get the prescription records and the refund claim form.Karbeling says pharmacies keep prescription records for seven years.Before the price hikes, the drugs sold for one or two cents a pill. Afterwards, the price for a single clorazepam pill was 35 cents and the company charged 75 cents for a lorazepate pill.
