Prescription meds here are covered by our state health system so we don’t have to think about which sort of plan we need. When I go to the pharmacy to collect my meds and there is more than one brand of a certain med with the same ”ingredients” the pharmacist usually recommends the cheapest. We also get a discount on each prescription med after the first purchase which increases as the year progresses and once we’ve paid a certain maximum total amount for all prescription meds we get them all free of charge for the rest of that year. I usually get to the ceiling in June and get my meds free of charge for the second half of the year.
I just received notice that the pharmacy monthly premium is going up $4, yearly deductible is going up almost $75. Plus, the meds that I used to pay $0 (tier one) for will now be $3 and the tier three drugs that were $11 will increase to $13. Oh, well, I'll look around but I'm pretty sure it's not any worse than the other plans. Just waiting to hear what the increase is going to be on the Supplement policy. I think this will all take care of the social security raise we're supposed to be getting. The guv'mint giveth and the guv'mint taketh away.
My notice yesterday was that generics are still free but the name brands are going up 3 buck until I hit the donut hole.
I've been using Good Rx lately. My urologist put me on a maintenance antibiotic. A 90 day script is $136, even with my Medicare Prescription Supplement plan!!! I found a discount on Good Rx so I only pay $50 for the 90 day script. I'm taking 50mg of nitrofuratoin every day. I have had occasional issues finding the right dosage and quantity on the Good Rx site (I usually only find 14 days' worth of 100mg capsules), but then had luck when doing a generic search on DuckDuckGo (or Google) for the dosage/quantity and having it direct me to the right Good Rx page. It's rather odd, but it works when a direct-site search comes up empty. I thought I'd toss that out there for anyone else who has not had good luck when searching the Good Rx site directly. I've yet to see any benefit to formally signing up to Good Rx, and don't know if getting a card will automatically get me this discount or if I'm better off just searching for a coupon when I need a refill. Next year I'm going to work with an insurance agent to review my plans. I used a free community adviser resource to get started on Medicare, but I've heard they do "good enough" but aren't always the best. I went in for a review once and got marginal advice. And I know that prescription plan pricing is dependent on the meds you know you buy and the "tiered" coverage you get, and all I was taking when I signed up was Lipitor.
My only subscription drug is Levothyroxine, and my Advantage plan covers most of the cost of that, as well as most of the OTC supplements that I take. Currently, I use the pharmacy at our local supermarket but will probably switch to an online pharmacy once my Levothyroxine dosage is stabilized because I can only get 30 days of Levothyroxine at a time from Hannaford, while I could get a six-month supply online.
My original prescription plan only cost me $11 per month, and there is $0 co-pay on the Lipitor, so the plan was essentially free. I've had to take antibiotics several times since August because of this catheter-caused bladder bacteria issue I've had, and then again for the bout of diverticulitis. I think over the past 3-4 years the cost has gone up to $16/month. I use the Walmart pharmacy because it's the closest to me (and I'm always in there anyway), and the CVS pharmacies in this region are so overwhelmed the service is horrid. They universally have bad reputations.