Medicines are small in size, but have massive impact. The people of the 21st century are currently undergoing a shift from purchasing medicines from physical chemist shops to ordering from accessible e-pharmacies. However, ordering medicine online from a random platform can be dangerous for many reasons. This blog will look into factors you should consider before you purchase medicines online.
Table of Contents
Doctor’s Prescription
A doctor’s prescription is necessary to ensure you get the right medication unless you are shopping for Over-the-Counter (OTC) drugs. Otherwise, your health condition may deteriorate. It ensures your treatment is tailored to your specific health requirements, considering your medical history and correct doses. Purchasing medicine through a doctor’s note eliminates the risk for ineffective treatment and harmful side effects. Therefore, choose an e-pharmacy that doesn’t sell medicines without a prescription.
Look for the Quality Reports
Ordering medicine online is a piece of cake, but you should be concerned about the quality of the drugs you are buying. Overlooking this can be detrimental to your health and make a big dent on your savings. As seen in the Gambia Cough Syrup case where 70 children died after consuming adulterated cough syrup made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals. Therefore, whenever you purchase medicine online, make sure the platform gives you the test report of the drug from a government-licensed laboratory.
Medicine with Affordability
Considering affordability ensures medications remain accessible to everyone because high drug cost may lead to skipped doses, deteriorating health conditions. However, affordability should never come at the expense of safety.
A widespread misconception is that buying expensive medication ensures quality, but that’s not always true. Even the drugs from big pharmaceuticals often fail, indicating cost is definitely not the determining factor for the quality of any medicine. Therefore, making an informed decision is vital. You should choose a platform that balances quality with cost. Online pharmacies allow us to access discounts, compare the costs, and even find generic alternatives (drug substitutes). You can leverage these opportunities to get the best quality medications without making a hole in your pocket.
Delivery Time
You should be very careful about how long the platform takes to deliver your medicine, especially when you are out of stock. Otherwise , you may end up skipping your doses, leading to serious complications. Timely delivery ensures you receive the care you need on time.
There are three types of online pharmacies: those with their own delivery fleet, those that outsource delivery, and those that use a mix of both.
Most e-pharmacies in India outsource their delivery, taking longer time to deliver medications. Those with their own delivery fleet are quicker, but provide services to a few areas only; they are good for acute cases. However, if you are a chronic patient who needs to stock medication for a whole week or month and have adequate time to plan for it, you can choose an e-pharmacy that outsources their delivery.
How Transparent the Platform is
Transparency of an online platform is built on quality, consistency, pricing, ease of use, and unambiguous terms & conditions. Knowing the medicine’s origin, pricing, and quality can help you understand whether the e-pharmacy complies with regulatory standards or not. It promotes accountability and mitigates the risk of counterfeit or substandard medicines entering the supply chain. Being open about business practices sets high standards for public health, enhancing the platform’s credibility & reliability. Therefore, the online platform from where you purchase medicine must be transparent.
Remember, if you feel an e-pharmacy is hiding something from you, you should cross check the facts or do away with it. You can contact the platform’s customer support team or go through customer reviews to clear your doubts.
Data Safety
You must have received annoying calls from various companies trying to sell you their products or services, leaving you wondering how they got the contact number. It happens mostly because either you shared your personal information online or the apps you are using shared your details with other businesses. Ordering medicine online involves sharing personal information that you will never want to go into the wrong hands. Otherwise, you could be targeted with fake “miracle” cures that you may fall prey to. Therefore, your e-pharmacy has to have a strict “data safety policy” to ensure your personal information remains safe.
Customer Support
One important aspect of purchasing medicine online is how easily you can contact the customer support. These professionals can help you place the order right, make changes to it, and track it efficiently. Therefore, you should ensure the e-pharmacy has quick response time, 24/7 availability, and multiple channels to get in touch with. To verify their responsiveness, you can ask them a question and check customer reviews. They should be capable of resolving issues and provide follow-ups to ensure better customer experience. Also, make sure they assist you in your preferred language.
Remember, if you find it difficult to connect with the customer support team of an e-pharmacy, you should look for another option.
Conclusion
The need for medicine continues to grow, so do the online platforms. Therefore, it’s really hard to distinguish which ones are good and which ones aren’t. Considering factors such as doctor note’s need, quality reports, affordability, delivery time, transparency, data safety, and customer support accessibility before you decide to buy medicine online can save you not only money but also your health.
Moreover, if you are still wondering where to look for a reliable and trustworthy online pharmacy, SayaCare is the answer. Here, you can purchase high-quality drugs at up to 90% lower price than the market rates. And the best thing, this app provides you with the quality reports for each medicine.
We hope this writing piece has added some value to your life. See you in the next one. Till then, Stay Smart, Stay Healthy!
