Honeybee Health Review – Is it Legit for Online Prescriptions?

In this article, we’ll review Honeybee Health, an online pharmacy. Are they legit, and are their prices as low as they claim to be? 

Telemedicine startups prescribing and shipping medications to your door have become extremely popular during the global pandemic of 2020.  With an estimated 46% of the U.S. population using at least one prescription medicine — 85% among those aged 60 or over — online pharmacies offer Americans tremendous convenience, even when we all return to normal and have the option to see doctors in person again.

Beyond just time savings though, online pharmacies also help patients save a ton of money. That’s a huge relief given a recent poll from CNBC that found that among 1,000 respondents, 44% claimed to have not purchased a medically-necessary prescription due to high cost within the last 12 months. Online pharmacies generally offer generic meds at a lower cost than name brand drugs recommended by most doctors. That’s a huge win for consumers!

Thus, there are plenty of reasons not to waste time getting your medications in-person these days. Today we’ll review Honeybee Health – one of the latest online pharmacies to make headlines — to help you decide if they are legit enough to entrust with your prescription medication. What is Honeybee, exactly, and how does their online pharmacy work? We’ll explore the drugs that Honeybee offers and provide an honest review of their service.

What is Honeybee Health, and what medications can you get online?

Honeybee is an online pharmacy that aims to reduce the overall cost of prescription drugs and minimize the hassles that are associated with traditional in-person pharmacies. The company was created by licensed pharmacists looking to help customers bypass the extra costs accrued from insurance companies and Big Pharma. 

Since its creation in 2017, Honeybee has expanded to offer over 6,000 generic meds that treat truly a countless number of medical conditions, including:

• Anxiety & depression
• Hypothyroidism
• Erectile dysfunction
• Hair loss
• Migraines
• Chronic pain
• Type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Acid reflux
• Asthma
• COPD
• ADHD
• Epilepsy 

How does getting prescription meds from Honeybee work? 

Customers new to Honeybee may go ahead and order their desired medications, though they will have to wait for their prescription to be received before their order can be sent out. There is no upfront cost or subscription fee to start an account with Honeybee. When you have a prescription, you can buy the meds for the price listed on the site, often much cheaper than you might find elsewhere.

In most cases, there will be more than one option for any given medication, so you can pick your manufacturer. For instance, if a customer has a prescription for Fluoxetine (known more commonly by its brand name Prozac), they will have three options to choose between, pictured here:

Source: Honeybee

How to transfer your prescription to Honeybee

We cannot stress this enough: in order to receive prescriptions from Honeybee, a customer must first have an official prescription from a doctor. These prescriptions must be transferred to Honeybee, either from the customer’s current pharmacy or doctor in one of three ways::

• Electronically: “Honeybee Health” in Culver City, CA (what this means is that your doctor’s office can electronically send them the prescription.)
• By fax: 310-559-5933
• By phone: 833-466-3979

After your first order, you can get refills from Honeybee as long as your prescription remains valid. Your order will always arrive in discreet packaging for privacy, and for extra peace of mind, customers are provided a tracking number to know where their meds are at any given point.

Honeybee sends orders for no additional shipping cost through USPS First Class Mail and orders typically arrive between 7 – 10 business days. You can also pay $10 extra for priority shipping to receive your prescription sooner as needed.

What medications are available via Honeybee?

Honeybee has thousands of generic medications available for treatment — the 15 different conditions they list on their site are just the most common. For each, there are typically several popular medications for customers to choose from, and each may have several options (dose, price, brand, etc.) from various different manufacturers.

Honeybee does not carry name brand medications, but rather less-expensive generics that are commonly used and medically approved for use. You can view the most commonly purchased medications here.

Are Honeybee’s meds legit?

Additionally, Honeybee works with reputable pharmaceutical manufacturers in order to supply the many different medications they have to offer. Honeybee’s top drug makers include:

• Teva
• Sandoz
• Mylan
• Apotex
• Lupin
• Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories
• Zydus
• Aurobindo
• Torrent
• Ascend
• Sun

Although all the prescription meds they offer are generic, they typically prove just as effective in clinical trials, so might as well save money. Click here to learn more about each of these manufacturers and view which of their medications are available through Honeybee, who is refreshingly transparent. FYI, Honeybee does not currently offer Insulin nor other refrigerated medications due to the potential complications and cost associated with shipping.

How is Honeybee different than a traditional pharmacy?

There are a number of ways in which Honeybee differs from a traditional pharmacy. The primary difference may be price / cost. 

Honeybee works with manufacturers of generic medications in order to bring customers the prescriptions they need at the lowest possible cost. These lower costs are possible thanks to Honeybee skipping insurance and PBMs, which artificially inflate prices

Additionally, Honeybee offers a much higher level of transparency for customers than traditional pharmacies. This is because customers are permitted to directly see the costs of each medicine, as well as the country in which they are manufactured, and decide for themselves which medication they would like to purchase. 

For skeptics who aren’t sure Honeybee is a legitimate pharmacy, it is important to note that there are a number of ways to verify the company’s legitimacy. They are as follows:

• Visit safe.pharmacy – The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy’s dot pharmacy (.pharmacy) domain program in 2015 to ensure the trustworthiness of online pharmacies. Honeybee has its own .pharmacy domain – honeybeehealth.pharmacy 
• Check LegitScript – An independent verification and monitoring service for online pharmacies, which catalogs warnings from over 100 government agencies.
• Verify that Honeybee’s facility license is in good standing with the California State Pharmacy Board.
• Verify Honeybee with the board of pharmacy website in your home state. Be sure to search under “non-resident pharmacy license.”

Where is Honeybee Health available?

Honeybee is currently only available within the United States. The online pharmacy currently is licensed to service 44 states and territories at this time, including:

Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

However, Honeybee has stated they plan to extend to all 50 states within the U.S. as soon as possible, or whenever they are able to obtain the remaining licenses. So check back soon if you don’t see your area on the list just yet.

How to get a prescription for Honeybee?

In order to get a prescription to be used through Honeybee, customers must visit their regular doctor or another practitioner in order to receive the initial prescription needed. Honeybee does not offer medical appointments to receive prescriptions at this time.

In order for Honeybee to accept and approve a script, it must be sent directly from either the customer’s doctor or original pharmacist. Honeybee does not accept written, faxed, or digital prescriptions that are sent directly from the customer.  This is really the only clunky part of Honeybee, in our opinion, but luckily there are many convenient ways to get a script if you don’t already have one. In Honeybee’s defense,  the requirement to have a  legit prescription sent from a  doctor is both the standard and safest practice for an online pharmacy that doesn’t have a doctor attached to it, but would be nice if they could also issue prescriptions themselves.

If you need to get a prescription through an online doctor, they recommend Push Health, which admittedly is an online doctor that we have not experienced firsthand. We’ve reviewed several online primary care doctors, like Forward, One Medical and Parsley Health, however that are worth looking into. Forward might be the best bet if you don’t use Push, the one that they recommend. 

For anyone who has a written (i.e. paper) prescription and are wondering if Honeybee can help them save? They can, but you will need to visit a large chain pharmacy like Walgreens or CVS to drop the prescription off and ask for it to be held until they are contacted by Honeybee for the transfer. 

Pro tip: When asking a doctor or pharmacy to transfer a prescription, be sure to specify that it should be sent to “Honeybee Health” located in Culver City, California. 

Does Honeybee accept health insurance?

Honeybee does not accept health insurance. This is because Honeybee’s company purpose is to help customers avoid expensive copays and deductibles that end up hiking up the costs of generic drugs. However, it is important to note that the medications available on Honeybee are very competitively priced and inexpensive. 

How much can you save on medications with Honeybee?

Here’s a look at a breakdown of the price ranges for a month’s supply of three popular medications, compared to the pricing for the name brands without insurance:

• Finasteride (Brand name: Propecia) – used to treat male pattern baldness. Three options are available ranging from $13 – $22 per month. Propecia is not typically covered by most health insurances and generally ranges from $70 – $75 per month when bought as the name brand through traditional pharmacies. We have an entire webpage about how to get low cost Finasteride – and their Finasteride prices are so low, we need to update the pricing on that page! 
• Escitalopram (Brand name: Lexapro) – a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) used to treat depression and anxiety. Four options available ranging from $6 – $19 per month. Brand name Lexapro averages around $69 per month without insurance. 
• Bupropion (Brand name: Wellbutrin) – used to treat anxiety, depression, and nicotine addiction. Two options available for either $14 or $16 per month. Without insurance, the name brand Wellbutrin costs around $74 per month.

Comparing Honeybee to Other Online Pharmacies

Honeybee is one of many online pharmacies that have appeared in recent times. Other online pharmacies are growing in popularity for many of the same reasons. As such, you may want to shop around between multiple pharmacies to maximize savings before selecting which one you prefer.

We will now examine how Honeybee compares to three other popular online pharmacies that promised to save you a bundle on drugs — Blink Health and Lemonaid. Let’s see how they stack up in terms of pricing, insurance, prescriptions, and locations. 

Comparatively, all of these online pharmacies offer competitive pricing on generic meds. Honeybee is currently lagging a bit behind in U.S. coverage with operations in only 44 states. That said, the platform is growing fast and is ideal for those without insurance, or those with high copays or deductibles, as no insurance is required, and medications costs stay generally under $20 per month. Of the three, Lemonaid Health is the only true virtual clinic alongside being an online pharmacy, meaning that the consultation, doctor’s visit, diagnosis, prescription, and delivery can all happen through this one company. 

Honeybee Health Reviews: What are customers saying?

Real-life customer reviews are where the truth lies when it comes to online pharmacies. Below are actual reviews of Honeybee to give a better idea of its cost effectiveness and convenience. Note: Honeybee also has an entire webpage devoted to customer testimonials, touting an impressive 4.8 / 5 rating based on 3,321 reviews on TrustPilot.

 

 

 

 

 

The Verdict: Is Honeybee legit for online prescriptions?

Honeybee Health is absolutely a legitimate online Rx service. They offer extremely competitive pricing on many common drugs, and total transparency, allowing customers to view every generic version of a medication available before selecting their own based on individual wants and needs.

Honeybee does not accept insurance but still maintains very low prices for medications, making it most popular among those who are uninsured and looking for rock-bottom prescription prices. There are no hidden subscription or shipping fees, so the price you see is the price you get. Again, we really appreciate Honeybee’s transparency here.

Overall, Honeybee offers a great service that’s slated to expand beyond the 44 states it’s currently serving in the very near term. Their simple-to-use and transparent service is definitely worth a try for those looking to save on their prescriptions. If you take prescription meds regularly, you might as well check out Honeybee’s site and see if you can get them cheaper. You have nothing to lose.

If you do end up giving Honeybee a shot, let us know about your experience and savings in the comments below!