Are you paying the price for prescription drugs?
The cost of prescription drugs is skyrocketing, and millions of Americans each day make potentially dangerous decisions just to afford the medicines they need. They put themselves at risk by skimping on food and clothing budgets, stretching critical drug dosages, and taking on crippling debt to pay for their prescriptions. Consumers split pills, fail to take drugs as prescribed, take expired medications, or share prescriptions in order to save money. Or they don’t take them at all. Read more
While the health care reform bill that passed in March 2010 was billed as a measure to help Americans gain better access to affordable health care and prescription drugs, the biggest winners may not be U.S. citizens, but rather large pharmaceutical companies themselves.
The Affordable Care Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by the President in March 2010, gives Americans better health security by putting in place comprehensive health insurance reforms that hold insurance companies accountable, lower health care costs, guarantee more choice, and enhance the quality of care for all Americans. Even, the powerful pharmaceutical lobby supported passage of the health care reform bill, but only after cutting a few deals with the White House to ensure that their interests would be protected.
To illustrate the influence of the pharmaceutical lobby, consider the change in the stance of President Obama, who decried big pharmaceutical companies while he served as senator for Illinois and then again during his presidential campaign, but then did an about-face as president. During Obama’s presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly criticized Billy Tauzin, the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbyist and a former congressman from Louisiana, for failing to support the practice of the U.S. government negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices. Then, Obama negotiated with him. Subsequently, Mr. Tauzin was paid $11.6 million in 2010, the year he negotiated the deal that helped pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, making him the highest paid lobbyist involved in the deal.
In closed-door negotiations over the health care reform package, the White House agreed to cap the cost of health care reform to pharmaceutical companies at $80 billion over a 10-year period. Pharmaceutical companies agreed to provide discounts on drugs of up to $80 billion over a decade in return for the Obama Administration’s assurances that the government would not negotiate lower prices for Medicare Part D, or the Medicare prescription drug program for seniors. Read more
The Affordable Care Act was designed to strengthen the Medicare Part D program and ensure that it will continue to provide health security to seniors for many years to come. The Act proposes to reduce Part D enrollees’ out-of-pocket costs when they reach the coverage gap, commonly referred to as the “doughnut hole.” The Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” has provided difficulties to cash strapped Americans, who need help to pay for life saving medications since the inception of the program. Often the coverage gap affects a patient when financial help and prescriptions are needed the most. Read more
More and more Americans are turning away from “big-box” pharmacy chains and are utilizing independent community pharmacies and online or mail-order alternatives like licensed, regulated Canadian Pharmacies.
NCPA is dedicated to the continuing growth and prosperity of independent community pharmacies in the United States, while lowering prescription costs for patients.
A recent survey released by the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) found that independent community pharmacies in the United States are reducing healthcare and prescription costs for patients by encouraging generic drug use and offering patient counseling services.
The NCPA, which represents the interests of America’s community pharmacists, released the survey in the 2011 NCPA Digest. The organization is committed to maximizing the appropriate use of lower-cost generic drugs and reducing the billions of dollars that are wasted each year by improper medication use.
While the survey revealed that the number of total independent community pharmacies decreased slightly from 23,117 to 23,064 during 2010, these pharmacies set a new high in generic drug use, increasing their “generic dispensing rate” from 69 percent to 72 percent. Since generic drugs typically cost 20 percent to 80 percent less than their brand-name equivalents, this practice helps Americans significantly save on their prescription costs. Read more
Cancer victims and their families are finding new hope through the innovative advances, high cost prescription medications, surgical techniques and other medical innovations – but at a high price.
While new drugs, surgical techniques and other innovations have improved outcomes for people battling cancer, these advances have also come with substantial prices increases in recent years, even for people with health insurance and plans to help them with prescription costs.
The AHRQ is the lead U.S. agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans.
A recent study conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) found that between 2001 and 2008, 13.4 percent of adults younger than 65 who had cancer spent more than 20 percent of their income on healthcare, including premiums. That compared with 9.7 percent of people with other chronic conditions and only 4.4 percent of those with no chronic conditions. The AHRQ is the lead U.S. agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans.
Further research from Duke University Medical Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute determined that the out-of-pocket prescription costs for cancer patients averaged $712 per month.
Apart from insurance premiums, the largest portion of that expense went to prescription costs, which averaged $174. The National Institute of Health estimated that in 2010, the overall, direct medical costs of cancer in the United States were $102.8 billion.
These high treatment and prescription costs, coupled with soaring insurance premiums, can have a devastating effect on the cancer patients’ financial well-being.
If you’re fighting cancer and having a hard time covering your prescription costs, experts at the non-profit organization Cancer Support Community recommend that you speak with your pharmacist, healthcare team and insurance company representative about ways to cut expenses. Be sure to ask about co-pays, generic alternatives and mail-order options to curb high prescription costs.
If you’re between the ages of 25 and 55, you may find yourself providing care for your aging parents and your own children at the same time. People in this group are often called the “sandwich generation” because they’re wedged between dual caregiving responsibilities.
The sandwich generation keeps getting larger, and a national study conducted for the AARP shows that nearly 70 percent of Baby Boomers are assuming these dual caregiving responsibilities. Although millions of sandwich generation members are coping with the demands of caregiving, they often have concerns about the rising costs of healthcare and prescription costs, all for themselves, their children and their parents.
photo credit: dyniss
Your parent may be listed as a dependent, for tax purposes. This will allow you to deduct all of the healthcare and prescription costs you pay for. These deductions may include medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. Qualifying expenses include nursing home costs, in-home healthcare, dental and vision care, and prescription costs.
First, there are tax breaks for the sandwich generation who are helping their parents with their expenses, including healthcare and prescription costs. According to Reuters, you can claim your aging parent as a dependent, even if he or she doesn’t live with you. If your mom is in a nursing home or assisted living facility and you provide more than half of her financial support, she qualifies as a dependent.
Once your parent is a dependent, all of his or her healthcare and prescription costs become yours, for the purpose of deducting them on your tax return. The deduction applies to medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income, and qualifying expenses include nursing home costs, in-home healthcare, dental and vision care, and prescription costs. Along with the deductions claimed for your child, these moves can save families thousands of dollars each year on their tax bill.
Beyond tax breaks, you can also speak with the doctors who treat you and your family members about federal, state and private patient assistance programs that are designed to help patients of all ages cut their prescription costs.
A large portion of Americans – as many as one in five – don’t take the medications their doctor has prescribed because they can’t afford the prescription high cost, according to a recent survey of people visiting an urban emergency room conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
The results, which were published in the journal “Academic Emergency Medicine,” show that more than 20 percent of those surveyed said they had previously not taken a prescribed medication on account of the high prescription cost. Another 5 percent of those surveyed said they were worried they might not be able to pay for medications in the future.
These concerns over prescription costs have also led to a growing number of people walking away from their prescriptions at the pharmacy counter.
A Wolters Kluwer Pharma Solutions review of 80 million insurance claims data that this so-called abandonment – when a patient doesn’t purchase or pick up a prescription that was filled and packaged by a pharmacist – was up 55 percent in the second quarter of 2010, compared with four years earlier.
Officials from Wolters Kluwer say this trend is being driven in part by rising co-pays for many drugs and increasing enrollment in high-deductible insurance plans that require patients to pay high out-of-pocket costs before insurance kicks in. The average co-pay for brand-name drugs like Lipitor rose to $28 a prescription in 2010, an 87 percent increase from 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
For other medications, both generic and brand name, the prescription costs’ co-pays can be as high as $100.
Many medical experts have long considered prescription drug use to be immune to financial pressures since people get sick regardless of the strength of the economy. However, growing evidence has shown that prescription costs have increasingly become a major factor as millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet during the recession.
A recent survey conducted by Consumer Reports has found that more people in the United States ignored their physician’s recommendations and skipped medical procedures or medication in an effort to save money on healthcare or prescription costs.
photo credit: Steve Snodgrass
48 percent of Americans reported that they choose not to fill prescriptions, took less medicine than their high cost prescription medication or passed on a medical test recommended by their doctor.
According to the survey, 48 percent of the consumers polled who take at least one medication said they didn’t fill their prescriptions, took less medicine than the prescribed dose or failed to undergo a medical test recommended by their doctor. That is 9 percent higher than the 49 percent reported in 2010 by the annual survey.
The survey of adults also found that one in six American households and one in four with incomes less than $50,000 told Consumer Reports that they felt stress over how much they must spend on healthcare and prescription costs.
Additional answers from the survey show that many healthcare professionals do not realize that so many of their patients are having trouble paying for drugs or medical care. The responses show that only 5 percent of Americans found out about prescription costs at the doctor’s office, while 64 percent were told of prescription costs by their pharmacists.
The survey found that the use of generic prescription medications increased to 75 percent of the prescriptions filled, compared to 73 percent in 2010. Despite this increase, 39 percent of the Americans who responded said they didn’t know that generic medications meet the same federal standards on safety and effectiveness and contain the same active ingredient as their brand-name counterpart. More than 40 percent also said their doctors only sometimes or never recommended a generic medication though these prescription costs may be lower for their patients.
The role played by pharmaceutical companies’ advertising in medication decisions is evident in the responses given – 18 percent of those surveyed said they asked their doctor to prescribe a drug they saw advertised. Of those patients, 70 percent said their doctor then wrote the prescription for the medication.
With many Americans still reeling from the recession, expensive prescription costs can be a real budget buster if you’re trying to stretch your money.
With a little bit of research and work, you can discover tremendous savings when buying your monthly prescriptions.
To rein in your prescription costs, first consider having a discussion with your physician. Your doctor might not be as concerned as you are about the high cost of your medications or might not realize that the prescriptions are causing you financial concerns. Let your physician know that you prefer generic or equivalent older medications that come with much lower prescription costs at the pharmacy.
Another way to save is by purchasing your medication in bulk. It’s more expensive for pharmacies to process small quantities of pills, and this cost is then passed on to you. You can reduce your out-of-pocket prescription costs by asking your doctor to write you a prescription for a 90-day supply of your medication.
You can also cut costs by splitting pills in half. Ask your physician to prescribe a higher dosage than you currently take, then split these pills in half. By combining this measure with a 90-day prescription, you can get 180 days of medication for the price of one co-pay. Just remember: it’s not safe to divide all medications, so ask your doctor or pharmacist before trying this.
Price shopping on the web is another great way to save on prescription costs. You can find deals on both name-brand and generic medications that can save you anywhere from 10 to 80 percent over brick-and-mortar pharmacies. PharmacyChecker.com is a useful resource to find the best drug prices from reputable, verified online pharmacies.
While you’re online, it’s also a good idea to explore pharmaceutical manufacturer websites. Many companies offer exclusive coupons and allow people who have no prescription drug coverage or cannot afford their prescriptions to enroll in patient assistance programs that provide free or low-cost medications.
With just a little work, and a little research, you save on your prescription costs.
The economy is driving millions of Americans to tighten their belts to save money, and many are feeling the squeeze when it comes to healthcare and prescription costs.
One of the easiest, most effective ways to slash your prescription costs is by choosing generic medications over their name-brand counterparts.
Generic prescriptions can help you cut prescription costs, often by 30-80%
A generic medication is a copy of a name-brand medication. photo credit: anolobb
Today, there are generic versions for about half of all the prescription drugs that are on the market.
Every year, as patents run out, more generics also become available. By law, all generic medications must have the same active ingredients as the name-brand versions they copy. They must also be the same strength and work the same way as the name-brand drugs.
The biggest difference between generics and name-brand medications is their prescription cost – generics typically cost 30 to 80 percent less than their counterparts. Generics also have different names and look different, but they don’t affect the quality of the drug.
If you pay a flat-fee co-pay when purchasing your prescription, the co-pay is lower with generic medication. If you pay a co-pay that’s based on the full cost of the drug, such as a 30 percent co-pay, you’ll also save money on your prescription costs by choosing the generic version.
Oftentimes, the full cost of a brand-name drug is about three times the cost of the generic version. If you don’t have prescription drug insurance money and pay out-of-pocket for your medications, you’ll save even more with generic medications.
The next time you’re discussing your medications with your physician or pharmacist, be sure to ask about generics. If there is no generic version of the brand-name drug you take, ask if a generic version in the same class of drugs would work as well as the brand-name drug.
By simply asking these simple question you can easily reduce your prescription costs.
Tamiflu is a high cost prescription medication that’s used for the prevention or treatment of the flu. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of Tamiflu in adults and children 1 year of age and older.
In order for Tamiflu to be effective in treating the flu, it must be taken within one to two days of the start of flu symptoms. For preventative measures, Tamiflu must also be started as soon as possible after exposure to the flu.
In recent years, outbreaks of the bird flu and swine flu caused a huge demand for Tamiflu across the United States. This demand also causes the prescription cost of Tamiflu to soar.
Many Americans turn to licensed and accredited online Canadian Pharmacies to purchase Tamiflu at prices much lower than in the U.S.
If you’re suffering from flu symptoms, you should call your doctor right away to discuss whether Tamiflu right for you.
Some of the most common symptoms are:
While evaluating your symptoms, your doctor can also talk to you about what you can expect regarding the prescription cost of Tamiflu.
In treatment studies, adult flu patients who took Tamiflu within 48 hours of experiencing symptoms recovered 30 percent, or 32 hours, faster than those who didn’t take the medication. Tamiflu works by attacking the flu virus inside the body, thus preventing it from spreading.
Tamiflu comes in either liquid or capsule form. It should be taken once or twice a day, depending on your doctor’s instructions. Medical professionals also recommend that Tamiflu be taken at the same time each day to maintain an even level of the medication in your blood. Make sure that you complete your entire prescription of Tamiflu, even if you start feeling better before you’ve finished it. This will ensure that the flu has been completely treated.
Every day, Americans like you make dangerous choices in order to afford high-priced, life-saving prescription drugs. The consequences of this can be disastrous, with forty percent of us taking risky steps to try and reduce our costs.
What will you have to sacrifice? Explore PayingthePrice.org to find the alternatives, learn how a Canadian pharmacy can help, share your story, and see what you can do to spread the word.
The news articles listed below have been provided via outside news agencies and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Paying the Price or it's sponsor.
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