Getting Prescription Drugs

One of the great failings of our health care system is its inability to ensure access to prescription medications for those who need them. The crisis is particularly severe for elders who depend on prescription medications but whose primary health insurance, Medicare, provides little or no help getting access to the drugs that elders need.

Facing this crisis, elders and others have learned a set of tricks to get prescription medication for free or at a reduced cost. This article will describe some of those approaches.

Pharmaceutical company patient assistance programs and physician assistance programs

One approeach to getting access to prescription medications for persons with limited income is through pharmaceutical company discount programs. Several major pharmaceutical companies operate these programs or participate in joint ones. Most of the patient assistance programs provide a 30 day supply of covered medications for around $15 or provide significant (20-50%)discounts from the retail price. Some pharmaceutical companies also run programs that are available only to physicians so it helps to ask your physician if there are any programs they have access to that you don't. The physician programs often provide a much more generous benefit if you can get your physician to help.  

Cynically, with the enactment of the new very limited and poorly designed medicare drug benefit, at least one of the largest pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer,  has used the new law as a lame excuse to stop running their own program even though the program provided a much more extensive benefit than the new Medicare law provides. Pfizer deserves and is getting enormous criticism for this outrageous decision. If you have a choice of prescription and non-prescription medications and you can avoid Pfizer products, you should consider doing so. To find the discount drug program you need, you must first learn the name of the manufacturer. Then try the links below or go to the manufacturers own website to find specific information.

Following are links to the major drug company programs:

Together RX - a discount drug card program operated jointly by Abbott Laboratories, Astra Zeneca, Aventis, Bristol Myers-Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Novartis and Ortho-McNeill. The card is free, available to low and moderate income households based on income and entitles the bearer to 20-40% discounts on average, redeemable at most local pharmacies.

The LillyAnswers Card provides access to Lilly products, typically for $12 for a months supply. Available to elders and disabled Medicare recipients without any other drug benefit

The Orange Card is offered to Medicare enrolled Seniors and disabled persons and provides access to most GlaxoSmith Kline products at 30% or more below retail. Note that there is currently an effort underway to boycott GlaxoSmithKline products based on their policy of refusing to permit Canadian Pharmacies from reimporting their products into the United States. Since these are their own products manufactured by them, reimportation is not a safety concern. preventing it is simply corporate greed.

BenefitsCheckup.Org is a great site that allows you to enter information about your own prescription drug needs and get information about the best medicare prescription drug card program for you along with other information about prescription drug discount programs that may be of help to you. Its run by the National Council on the Aging, an unbiased non-profit organization, and is highly recommended.

HelpingPatients.Org - this website also provides information about all of the available programs, both those for patients and those that can only be accessed by doctors. This site is very well organized and easy to use to find out who manufacturers your medication and what programs they participate in. Its run by the pharmaceutical companies however, so take its nice words about them with a grain of salt.

Purchase your drugs on-line

One simple way to reduce your costs is to purchase drugs from on-line pharmacies. There are several big and generally reputable ones like Drugstore.com. Choose wisely and be careful. Generally, the prices of drugs from the major on-line U.S. pharmacies is 10-15% cheaper than the prices in your local pharmacies. Sometimes the discounts are considerably more. Comparison shop for the drugs you buy repeatedly.

Purchase your drugs from Canada

It is technically illegal under U.S. law to purchase drugs from a foreign source if they are available in the United States. Despite this millions of Americans, faced with little choice, have begun purchasing drugs on-line from Canada. In some cases organizations, including Mass Senior Action Council here in Massachusetts, have organized bus trips for drug purchasing across the border. There are many Canadian on-line pharmacies and the prices through these Canadian suppliers are typically considerably lower than their American counterparts thanks to irrational drug pricing policies of the major pharmaceutical companies

Medicare Drug Discount Cards

A Medicare drug benefit will be in place in 2006 but in the meantime, the new Medicare law authorizes the creation of drug discount card programs. Generally these cards are available to Medicare recipients and are sold by private insurers for about $30 each. The cards entitle the bearers to discounts on most prescription medications in the 10-25% range depending on the medication. Sound familiar? These cards mirror the sorts of benefits that are offered by the drug company programs and those cards are free. In many cases the benefits are lower.  Thanks to this sham discount program the drug companies are now beginning to discontinue their own programs that provided free cards and better benefits. Great work Congress!

If you are low income (generally with income below 135% of the federal poverty level) you can receive a $600 a year credit to use in conjunction with one of these cards. That's the only real benefit provided.

Be careful. Each kind of card provides different benefits for different medications. You must carefully analyze your own prescription drug needs against the benefits provided by each of the available cards to determine which one is best for you. Once you choose a card you cannot switch until November of the next year so you must choose wisely the first time. The best way to determine the right card for you is to analyze your own needs at a government site that tracks all of the programs and will ask you questions about your own prescriptions and help you identify the best card for you. Click here to go to the governments Medicare prescription drug information site to complete this analysis. There is a similar program to analyze your situation that is highly recommended available at BenefitsCheckUp.Org. This site also helps you analyze your eligibility for other benefits.

If you are over 65 years of age or disabled, consider the Prescription Advantage Program.

Prescription Advantage is a state funded program that helps pay the cost of prescription medications. To be eligible you must be

• age 65 or older
• under age 65, work 40 or fewer hours per month, meet CommonHealth disability guidelines and have gross annual household incomes at or below 188% of the Federal Poverty Level.

There are no immigration or citizenship based restrictions for eligibility. There are deductibles and premiums for coverage for seniors with incomes above 188% of poverty and reasonable copayments. For more information call 1-800-AGE-INFO or click here.

And don't forget to go to our Speak Out section and tell us your own prescription horror story.