No doubt you already know you can save on expensive medicines by asking your doctor for a prescription for generic equivalents. Here are five more cost-cutting tricks
• Ask for free Trials
Doctors are overwhelmed with medicines samples from manufacturers but they do not usually distribute these trials to their patients.
Ask, and you may get a week or more of a pricey drug for free.
Caution: Always look for the expiry dates. Samples that have been round the doctor’s office for long time.
• Use mail order or the Internet but only when suitable
Purchasing medicines through mail or on Internet may be an economical as well as suitable method to buy medicines. Though, several mail-order pharmacies use non-pharmacists to fill prescriptions.
When pharmacist do a final check, the volume of drugs being processed is high and errors are possible.
Going the mail-order or Internet route also means you lose the benefit of a face-to-face meeting with your pharmacist who can warn you about drug interactions or answer your questions on the spot.
Bottom line: If you want to use mail order or the Internet, do so only with drugs you’re familiar with ideally, drugs you must take on a long-term basis. In this way, you decrease your chance of taking the incorrect medicines or falling victim to unexpected drug interactions.
• Don’t let your insurance company execute restrictions on prescription length.
If doctor writes a medicines for a 90-day supply of pills, your underwriter may accept only a 30 day supply.
Limiting your prescription in this manner helps the insurer cut costs but costs you money and extra trips to the drugstore.
Loophole:
If you require 90 days of pills but your guarantor covers just 30 days, ask doctor to substitute “take as directed” as an alternative of “take once a day” on the prescription form.
That makes it hard for the insurance company to analyze how many pills include a 30 day supply. You’ll be able to get the complete 90 day supply filled.
Caution: Find out how often the drug should be taken, and write it yourself on the bottle.
• Avoid time-release formulations.
Many prescription drugs are available in both time-release and non-time-release forms. Time-release medicines are much convenient because they don’t need to be taken as their “plain” complements. But they’re also more costly.
• Look into patient-assistance programs.
Programs given by several pharmaceutical makers but hardly revealed individuals short on cash due to job loss or other financial obstruction may be suitable for free prescription medication.
In most cases, all that’s required is your doctor’s certification that you’re not able to pay for an expensive but required medication.
Call the manufacturer directly to find out if a particular drug is available through such a program and what the terms are.
