Action 9: Ways to save more on your meds

CHARLOTTE — You get your prescription filled, but maybe you also get a dose of sticker shock. “Healthcare is expensive. And I work in healthcare,” Martavia Brown said. She runs a home health care business and watches patients cut back on other expenses just to afford their meds.

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“Especially for our older people. It’s been very hard for them,” she said. “[Patients are] fighting for pricing. It’s just crazy. It’s just crazy.”

Emmabella Rudd has diabetes. Her struggle to get insulin led her to become a patient advocate for affordable drugs.

“Being a patient, especially in the United States, relying on a prescription drug to survive, is, you know, navigating hurdles day to day, and that can be extremely frustrating,” she said.

It’s not surprising to Merith Basey.

“Americans pay between four- and eight-times what patients in other countries pay for the very same brand name prescription drugs,” she said.

She runs a nonprofit, Patients for Affordable Drugs. The way she sees it, drug companies set the list price and typically try to extend their monopoly on their drugs for as long as possible. Then insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers -- the middlemen in the drug industry -- work out different deals between the people who make the drugs, sell them, and insure them. “The key piece here is that it’s very opaque, which means that it’s hard for patients to really know exactly what’s going on and how much they’re going to pay,” she said.

Congress is looking at a bill that would limit how much the middlemen can earn on prescriptions, the idea being that would make it harder to drive up prices for patients.

Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke says here are a few ways to try to save money:

Shop around: True, that’s not always an option, especially if you’re sick and just want to get your meds.
Ask the pharmacy the price if you don’t use insurance.
Ask if they have any coupons.
If you have time, see if the ‘drug company’ has any discounts. No guarantee, but Stoogenke has seen this work.
Check out sites like GoodRx.
The Carolinas have assistance programs for those who qualify (in South Carolina’s case, only for HIV meds).

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