Doctor refuses to prescribe Proscar, why??

[DaveB23]

13 months ago I visited a dermatologist for my hair thinning. She told me to begin using minoxidil (which I have everyday since) and also prescribed me Propecia.
At the time I was wary to try finasteride, and wanted to see how I would react to the minoxidil first. But now Im ready to take the finasteride plunge.

The only thing is, I am a college student and cannot afford the expensive Propecia. From all the research I have done online and on forums, Proscar is the same as Propecia, except it comes in 5 mg tablets that need to be broken up. Proscar is also much less expensive, so it seems to be the perfect option for me.

When I took my Propecia prescription to Walgreens and asked to get Proscar instead, they said I would need to have a separate prescription for the Proscar.

When I called my doctors office and asked them to write me a prescription for Proscar instead of Propecia, the secretary told me that the doctor refuses to write prescriptions for Proscar and that she only writes it for Propecia.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? The only reason I can think of is that the doctor gets some sort of financial kickback from Propecia for prescribing it instead of Proscar. When I mentioned this to the secretary, she said she did not believe this is the case, that the doctor doesn't prescribe it because it is different than Propecia and something about Proscar worries the doctor.
I believe this is utter bullshit but I wanted to ask you all here if anyone else has ever experienced this, and if there is in fact a difference between Propecia and Proscar that would make a doctor wary to prescribe it?