The cash route
What does the headline cash price leave out?
Cash price means what you pay without using insurance. Check whether the offer is for your pill or injection, who can use it and when it ends.
Can a low price last only at the start?
Yes. Here is a dated example for semaglutide (Ozempic) injection.
On September 26, 2026, the advertised cash offer priced only the first two monthly fills at $199.
The offer was for new patients paying without insurance, living in the US and aged 18 or older.
It covered prescriptions with a strength of 0.25 mg or of 0.5 mg. The unit mg means milligrams, a measure of amount. These numbers describe the medicine’s strength: the amount in a prescribed dose.
The monthly price after the first two fills was $349 for these prescribed strengths: 0.25 mg, 1 mg or 0.5 mg.
For a prescription marked 2 mg, the monthly price was $499.
December 31, 2026 was the last day of the introductory terms.
These are medicine prices; request a separate quote for the care around the prescription.
Which price matches my prescription, and what would I pay after the first two purchases?
Will a cash payment count toward my insurance costs?
Under the self-pay terms above, an insured patient cannot seek repayment from the insurer or count the payment toward the deductible.
A deductible is the amount a plan asks you to pay before it begins paying for covered care.
A manufacturer’s savings card is a separate offer from its cash price.
The savings cards for these branded drugs require commercial insurance, meaning a workplace or private plan.
They exclude Medicare, Medicaid and military coverage.
People with Medicare can pay the manufacturer’s cash price for this medicine. They cannot use its savings card.
Ask the pharmacy to confirm the cash-offer terms for your prescription before paying.
Ask about the plan’s payment routeCan I rely on the same price later?
When checked on September 26, 2026, the Ozempic introductory cash offer was set to end on December 31, 2026.
Wegovy’s introductory cash offer and the Zepbound and Mounjaro savings cards also had a December 31, 2026 end date.
An end date tells you when the printed offer stops promising that price. Check the new terms for a purchase after that date.
Keep the quote, the offer terms and the date together.
Sources for this chapter
Check the cash offer and savings-card terms separately. Ask which applies to your prescription.