The cost of medications remains a horrific burden for people paying for their own health care in the United States. Patients are being required to pick up a growing portion of health-care costs, especially at each visit to the drug store.
According to AOL Health, millions of Americans now get their medications according to a three-tier co-pay plan, in which they pay low co-pays for generic medications, medium co-pays for preferred brand drugs, and high co-pays for others.
For patients with cardiovascular disease, state-of-the-art treatment often requires taking three, four, or even more drugs every day, for the rest of the lives, AOL Health says. Many people are being forced to choose between stocking up on groceries, or paying for their medications.
What can you do to hold down your costs without compromising your health? AOL Health offers a few basic strategies:
1. Tell your doctor that money is an issue. AOL says physicians often assume incorrectly that insurance is going to pick up all of the cost of medications, or may be oblivious to the financial impact of the prescriptions that they write. Simply tell your doctor that you’re interested in keeping your out-of-pocket expenses to a minimum. There is virtually always something he or she can do to alter your regimen without sacrificing effectiveness, AOL says.
2. Ask if your meds have generic versions, AOL says. Generics are much less expensive than brand-named drugs. Once a medication has outlived its patent protection, and many companies are allowed to make “generic” versions, the price can fall to pennies per day. Don’t think you’re sacrificing quality either. Generic medications are carefully regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so their quality is dependable. And now, AOL says, a whole generation of miracle drugs are becoming generic, so you can expect their prices to fall. Be sure to ask your doctor if you can be switched to generic versions of your current medications.
3. Switch to generic drugs within the same class. Even if your medication doesn’t have a generic version, AOL says there are often generics for other drugs within the same class of medications - including the most important classes of cardiovascular medications, ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, beta-blockers and statins. Of course, people respond differently to different drugs, and you would need to see your doctor again to be sure that the generic medication was having the same effect. But this extra visit or two to the doctor to check that your blood pressure, or cholesterol, or heart exam was satisfactory could save you lots of money over a year or two by reducing your co-payment.
4. Don’t pay for more than you need. If you don’t have insurance coverage for medications, and your doctor prescribes a new medication, ask them to write a prescription for just a week or so. If the drug works out, you can then fill a long-term prescription. AOL recommends this strategy to help you avoid ending up with an entire bottle of meds that didn’t work out.
5. Diet and exercise. Lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise really do work, and many people can reduce or even stop their medications if they can make real changes in what they eat and how they live. Don’t stop your pills and then make changes in lifestyle - make the changes, and then ask your doctor which of your medications may no longer be needed, AOL says.
