Crestor (Rosuvastatin) Cost in Maryland: Prices, Insurance, and Savings in 2026

Rosuvastatin is the generic name for the cholesterol-lowering medication sold under the brand name Crestor. It belongs to the statin class (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) and is FDA-approved as an oral once-daily tablet in 5 mg, 10 mg, 20 mg, and 40 mg strengths for lowering LDL cholesterol, reducing cardiovascular risk in certain patients, and slowing progression of atherosclerosis. Generic rosuvastatin has been widely available since patent expiration, and generics must meet the same FDA bioequivalence standard as the brand product.

The generic almost always costs less than the brand, sometimes by a wide margin, and for most Maryland patients there is no clinical reason to pay brand pricing. Generic rosuvastatin is a low-cost, FDA-approved bioequivalent of brand Crestor, typically priced far below the manufacturer's list price for the brand. Maryland Medicaid places generic rosuvastatin on its preferred drug list, while brand Crestor generally requires prior authorization. Exact dollar amounts change often and depend on pharmacy, plan, and month, so treat any specific price below as illustrative rather than a quote you can rely on without checking current numbers.

What This Page Can and Cannot Tell You About Price

Cash and insurance prices for a generic drug shift by pharmacy, by month, and by which discount card or plan a patient uses. We do not have a first-party price survey of Maryland pharmacies, and the specific dollar figures that circulated in earlier versions of pages like this one (exact price ranges by pharmacy chain or neighborhood) are not something we can verify from the source material available for this rewrite. What is stable and verifiable is the structure: generic rosuvastatin is a low-tier, low-cost generic almost everywhere it is sold, brand Crestor is a higher-cost branded product that most formularies now discourage, and the size of the gap between them is large enough that checking your specific pharmacy and plan before filling is worth the few minutes it takes.

If a specific current price matters to your decision, check it directly: call your pharmacy, or look up rosuvastatin on a pricing tool such as GoodRx, at the time you intend to fill it. Prices dated more than a few weeks earlier than your fill date should not be treated as current.

Maryland Medicaid: What Is Established Versus What Needs Verification

Maryland Medicaid, like most state Medicaid programs, maintains a preferred drug list (PDL) that favors generics and typically requires prior authorization for brand-name drugs that have a generic equivalent. It is reasonable to expect that generic rosuvastatin sits on Maryland's preferred list and that brand Crestor requires prior authorization, consistent with how most state Medicaid programs and their managed care organizations (MCOs) handle a molecule with a long-available generic. However, the specific copay amounts, the exact prior authorization criteria, and which MCOs (such as CareFirst Community Health Plan, Priority Partners, or Amerigroup) apply which rules are details that change and that we cannot confirm without pulling the current Maryland Medicaid PDL and each MCO's formulary directly. If you are on Maryland Medicaid or a HealthChoice MCO, confirm your plan's current formulary tier and any PA requirement before assuming coverage.

Maryland expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act; income-based eligibility thresholds and marketplace subsidy rules change periodically and should be checked against Maryland Health Connection's current guidance rather than assumed from this page.

Commercial Insurance and Medicare Part D

Most commercial formularies place generic rosuvastatin on their lowest cost-sharing tier, because that is standard practice for a generic with no supply constraints. Brand Crestor is commonly placed on a higher, non-preferred brand tier, or excluded from the formulary entirely, once a generic has been available for several years. Whether a specific Maryland-sold plan (CareFirst, Cigna, Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, or a federal employee plan) requires step therapy, and what the exact copay is, depends on the individual plan document for the current plan year and should be verified with that insurer rather than inferred from a general pattern.

Medicare Part D coverage of generic rosuvastatin is broad and typically low-cost given the drug's low ingredient cost. The Inflation Reduction Act established a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap for Part D enrollees, which took effect for the 2025 plan year (verify the current-year figure at CMS's Inflation Reduction Act and Medicare page, since program parameters can be updated annually). A patient filling only a low-cost generic statin is unlikely to approach that cap from rosuvastatin alone, though the cap becomes materially relevant for patients on multiple higher-cost brand medications.

Verification Checklist: Stable Facts Versus Facts That Expire

Use this before quoting a price or coverage rule from this page or any other source.

Stable, unlikely to change without a formal regulatory action

• Rosuvastatin is the generic name; Crestor is the brand name; both are FDA-approved HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins).
• Generic rosuvastatin must meet FDA bioequivalence requirements to the reference brand product.
• Rosuvastatin is dosed once daily as an oral tablet, approved range 5 mg to 40 mg.
• 503A compounding pharmacies may prepare patient-specific rosuvastatin formulations under a valid prescription and applicable state board of pharmacy rules; this is distinct from 503B outsourcing facilities, which do not require patient-specific prescriptions.
• ACC/AHA cholesterol guidance distinguishes moderate-intensity and high-intensity statin dosing categories as a clinical concept (confirm the specific dose cutoffs against the current published guideline before citing a number).

Date-sensitive, verify at the time of use

• Cash price of generic rosuvastatin at any specific pharmacy or chain.
• Brand Crestor list price.
• Whether a specific Maryland Medicaid MCO requires prior authorization for brand Crestor, and the exact copay tiers.
• Whether a specific commercial insurer places generic rosuvastatin on Tier 1 versus a different tier, and the associated copay.
• Medicare Part D out-of-pocket cap amount for the current plan year.
• Manufacturer savings card terms and eligibility restrictions for brand Crestor.
• Maryland telehealth prescribing rules and telehealth payment-parity requirements (state law can be amended).
• Discount card (GoodRx, SingleCare, RxSaver) pricing at a specific pharmacy on a specific day.

Rosuvastatin dosing information should not be considered current unless you can confirm the details from the second list were updated within the last few weeks.

Compounded Rosuvastatin: Legal Pathway, Narrow Use Case

Compounded rosuvastatin can be legally prepared by a licensed 503A compounding pharmacy under a valid, patient-specific prescription, under the federal framework established by FDA guidance on pharmacy compounding under Section 503A. State boards of pharmacy, including Maryland's, layer additional licensing and practice requirements on top of the federal framework; confirm current Maryland-specific compounding regulations with the Maryland Board of Pharmacy rather than assuming a specific regulation number is still in force, since state administrative codes are periodically renumbered or amended.

Compounding is a narrow-use pathway, not a cost-saving strategy for most patients, because commercial generic rosuvastatin is already inexpensive. Clinical situations where compounding is sometimes considered include a needed dose or liquid formulation that is not commercially manufactured, or a documented allergy to a specific inactive ingredient (dye, filler) in manufactured tablets. Anyone considering a compounded statin should confirm the pharmacy's current state license and that a licensed prescriber has evaluated them directly, since compounded products do not go through FDA's premarket approval process the way manufactured generics do.

Discount Programs and the Maryland "Gag Clause" Law

Manufacturer savings cards for brand Crestor are generally restricted to commercially insured patients; federal anti-kickback rules prevent manufacturers from offering copay assistance to patients enrolled in government insurance programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, or VA coverage. Discount cards from services such as GoodRx, SingleCare, or RxSaver are available regardless of insurance status and sometimes beat an insurance copay for a low-cost generic like rosuvastatin, though the comparison changes fill to fill and pharmacy to pharmacy.

Several states, including Maryland, have enacted pharmacist "gag clause" protections that permit (and in some cases require) pharmacists to tell patients when a cash or discount-card price is lower than their insurance copay, rather than defaulting silently to the insurance claim. Confirm the current scope of Maryland's law directly with the Maryland Insurance Administration or Board of Pharmacy if this matters to a specific transaction, since the details of state gag-clause statutes vary and are occasionally amended.

Telehealth Prescribing in Maryland

Maryland permits telehealth evaluation and prescribing for chronic conditions such as hyperlipidemia, and the state's telehealth payment-parity requirements for insurers have been in place since legislation passed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. A Maryland-licensed provider can review a patient's lipid panel and cardiovascular risk factors by video or audio visit and send an electronic prescription to a Maryland pharmacy. Confirm current parity-law scope and any recent amendments directly, since telehealth statutes are an area state legislatures revisit periodically.

Ongoing monitoring after starting rosuvastatin commonly includes a follow-up fasting lipid panel some weeks after initiation, with the exact interval and frequency depending on individual risk and clinician judgment; a specific fixed monitoring schedule should come from your prescriber rather than a general population guideline applied without evaluation.

Dosing, Effectiveness, and What Is Established Versus Uncertain

Established: Rosuvastatin lowers LDL cholesterol in a dose-dependent way across its approved 5 mg to 40 mg range, and higher doses within the approved range (20 to 40 mg) are classified by ACC/AHA guidance as high-intensity statin therapy, while lower doses (5 to 10 mg) are considered moderate-intensity. The FDA label recommends a lower starting dose (5 mg) in patients of Asian descent based on observed differences in drug exposure. This class of medication has trial evidence, including a well-known large randomized trial (JUPITER), supporting reduced cardiovascular events in specific at-risk populations, though the exact effect sizes and the population characteristics of that trial should be confirmed against the original published trial report rather than repeated from memory, since we could not verify a specific citation for this rewrite.

Plausible but requires individual confirmation: Genetic variation (for example, in the SLCO1B1 gene) has been studied as a factor influencing statin-related muscle symptoms in some research, but routine pharmacogenomic testing before starting a statin is not standard practice, and this should not be read as a recommendation to seek such testing without a clinician's guidance.

Not established for this page: Exact percentage LDL reductions at each specific dose, and exact relative-risk reductions from specific trials, are commonly quoted online but the specific figures could not be verified against a confirmed primary source in this rewrite. If a precise number matters to a treatment decision, ask your prescriber to walk through the current FDA label and the guideline evidence directly rather than relying on a percentage quoted on a cost-focused page.

Common side effects include muscle aches, which occur in a meaningful minority of patients on any statin; serious muscle injury (rhabdomyolysis) is rare. Anyone who develops significant muscle pain, dark urine, or unexplained weakness while on a statin should contact their prescriber promptly, and anyone with signs of a severe allergic reaction should seek urgent care.

How Maryland Compares to Neighboring States

Generic drug pricing tends to be similar across a regional pharmacy market because national chains price generics close to a national baseline with modest regional variation. Medicaid formulary and prior-authorization rules, by contrast, are set state by state, so a Maryland Medicaid patient and a Virginia Medicaid patient can face different PA requirements for the same brand-name statin even though both cover the generic without restriction. Filling a prescription across state lines is generally legal as long as the prescriber is licensed to prescribe for the patient and the dispensing pharmacy is licensed in its own state, but insurance network rules may still limit which out-of-state pharmacies are covered at an in-network rate.

Practical Steps to Reduce Cost

Ask your prescriber to write for "rosuvastatin" rather than "Crestor" so the pharmacy dispenses the generic by default. Before filling, compare your insurance copay against a current discount-card price for the same pharmacy, since the lower option is legal to use and Maryland's gag-clause protection allows your pharmacist to tell you which is cheaper. If you take a stable, maintenance dose, ask about a 90-day mail-order fill through your plan's pharmacy benefit manager, which sometimes lowers the per-unit cost compared with monthly fills, though this depends on your specific plan's mail-order pricing. If cost is a barrier to taking the medication as prescribed, tell your prescriber directly. Guideline-based cardiology practice treats cost-related nonadherence as a clinical problem worth solving, not a side issue, and there may be a lower-cost alternative statin or an assistance program (such as NeedyMeds or a state 211 referral line) that fits your situation.