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My husband has Medicare Part A, but we have kept our other insurance. He recently learned that our insurance will no longer cover one of his prescriptions, because they will only cover prescriptions that medicare covers. (Strange, but that's what he was told.) So they covered it before he was medicare-age, but now they won't.
That would be okay, except that it is very expensive. Very expensive.
In the past I've seen coupons and discount cards that supposedly get you cheaper prescriptions. What are some programs that do this? Where should we be looking?
You can always call the doctor. A lot of times they know of savings plans/discount cards for specific medications or just generally. GoodRX is also a good choice for discounts. Sometimes you can find the discount cards on the medication websites themselves too, if they are very expensive brand-name options.
Some of those really expensive drugs, your best bet would be to contact the drug company that makes it and ask for a discount card. Some drugs, you can get them for $10 a month, good for one calendar year. So if he got the discount now, he would only have it until the end of December.
GoodRX gives you a little discount on the expensive ones. You can go to their website, and enter the drug name and it will show you all of the options to find the cheapest price. But in my case, it did not help at all! The discount card helped, a lot!!
I've used GoodRx but have actually had better luck with a discount drug plan called Script Hero. It works exactly the same as GoodRx. You go on the website and it gives you the price of the drug. Also asks for your zip code. Tells you the cost of the med as well as where you can get. Last week my insurance company quoted me a price of $245 for a tube of cream for my face. I got it for $23 at the local Publix using Script Hero. Astonished!
Okay, true story. I popped onto CD just to share this tidbit. I was taking a medication through AETNA for the last 16 years. Approved every year. This year they would not renew the authorization. For those unaware, CVS owns AETNA. This script was costing me $20 co-pay every month. Well, I signed up for GoodRX and the charge was estimated at $25 on their website (they list every pharmacy and their pricing). When I called Walgreens (first time user), they ran the card and it was $12. and change. Just wow.
I never paid attention because I did not think I had any choice. My mistake. I think the fact CVS owns AETNA is such a conflict of interest and everyone needs to question every single RX they get filled.
Depending on the drug, if its not brand name, but a generic, you can save big. For example, one drug I take requires prior authorization, but my PCP's staff can't seem to get things done promptly, so it's a big hassle to get approved. I gave up, had them send the prescription to Walmart and use GoodRx to bring my cost down to $30 for a three month supply, not bothering with insurance. In another case two years ago, with an odd drug prescribed by a physician, my insurer claimed it was OTC. I researched it, and found that yes, there was an FDA OTC approval. Unfortunately, it was only available to hospitals, not in retail channels. Using GoodRx, my cost dropped from several hundred per month to about $40. Thank goodness I only needed it for about 2 months.
My husband has Medicare Part A, but we have kept our other insurance. He recently learned that our insurance will no longer cover one of his prescriptions, because they will only cover prescriptions that medicare covers. (Strange, but that's what he was told.) So they covered it before he was medicare-age, but now they won't.
That would be okay, except that it is very expensive. Very expensive.
In the past I've seen coupons and discount cards that supposedly get you cheaper prescriptions. What are some programs that do this? Where should we be looking?
Thanks.
I thought I replied to this when you made the thread. Humor me. Go to the Medicare site, you'll see find plans, don't log in. On the right you'll see log in, under it, select continue without logging in. Answer the questions to look for plans without logging in. 1st question What type of 2021 coverage are you looking for? Drug plan (Part D), enter your zip code.
Do you want to see your drug costs when you compare plans? Yes
How do you normally fill your prescriptions? Both
Add prescription drug. To start, only enter this medication they won't cover then select done adding drugs.
Add pharmacies. I suggest adding a CVS because some insurance companies have partnered with CVS.
Click done adding drugs. I'm showing 30 plans for my search, next click on plan details to see if his med is covered. It will tell you the Retail cost, Cost after deductible, Cost in coverage gap and Cost after coverage gap. Once you know that they do cover it, you can look at Yearly Drug & Premium Cost, then use the yearly drug and premium cost to look at the other plans, clicking plan details when you've found one that's cheaper.
If you happen to find a plan that does cover it, you can enter all of his meds to make sure those are covered too so you know for open enrollment. I do suggest adding the generic at 1st. One of my meds they do not cover the generic, the brand is expensive at over $1,000 a month so that when I did the search with the generic, no one covered my med. When I changed the generic to brand, I found coverage. If after you see if there is coverage for this med, you can try adding other major pharmacies too like Walgreens, Rite Aid and Walmart to see if they favor one over the others.
As I said, humor me and do it. I've had a really great, $100 a month, AARP/ United Healthcare premium prescription insurance for close to 10 years. Every year I check for plans to make sure my meds are covered. In November I got a surprise. AARP stopped covering my main med January 2021. So at 1st, that was my main plan, looking for one to cover it. I found 2 companies that did cover it, so I added my next prescription that companies like to exclude. I found both companies did not cover this med, so I knew it would cost me about $25 a month with GoodRx. What ended up happening is they did cover it in January and February, they sent me a letter to say they do not normally cover it but that my doctor can ask for an inclusion by sending a medical necessity letter and I'm happy to say that this company did end up covering this med for me, so you never know.
If you do find that there are Medicare prescription plans that do cover your hubs med, you can call his insurance company and say what gives? Can you have the doctor file for an inclusion like my doctor did. I'd rather pay $6 a month for this med then the GoodRX price of $25.
I then added my other meds. I had added a CVS pharmacy because that's where I got the GoodRX med from, it was a good thing I did add a CVS pharmacy because I found out that the insurance I picked, favors CVS, so in order to get the best price for all of my meds, I had to fill everything at CVS.
I know that you're not using a medicare prescription plan. What I want you to do is to see if some of Medicares plans do cover it so you will know for yourself whether his insurance is lying to you or not. It's very possible that they stopped covering it this year like my insurance stopped covering my main medication.
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