Retail price of 2 prescriptions...$1,507.08!!

[Straitlover]

My mother's chemotherapy pills are over $8,000 per month. She has a Medicare Part D plan (prescriptions), but her copay is around $7,000 for a year. Fortunately, I was able to get her a grant (non-profit agency) to cover the copays, so it doesn't cost her anything.

Glad they have stuff for acne now. When I was a teen (late 70s to early 80s), I just had to suffer through it. We could not afford to go to a dermatologist.

 

[ktate82]

My dd has been battling acne for awhile and we have tried many Rx medications and topicals and nothing has worked. I never gave much thought about the retail price of her medications until after this year when we changed our insurance and now we pay OOP for medications. Last month her meds were $540 and they did nothing for her
Needless to say she is no longer on any meds and is tring a treatment called Theraclear. She's only had one so far but hopefully when she finishes the next 3 she will have no need to take the next step to Accutane ($1200 a month).

I strongly advise anyone against Accutane. I took it for 3 months and had horrible side effects to the point where I was hospitalized due to it depleting my immune system. After that happened, we started looking up the side effects (I had been told it was a wonderful drug before hand) and found that it does everything to cause blindness (may or may not resolve when stopping it), cancer in lab animals, and people that do react to it have a higher incidence of auto immune disease later in life. The book of side effects was almost 3/4" thick, and they were all serious ones (not head ache or nausea). I had my daughter about 3 years after taking it, and she had low set ears, eye abnormalities, and trachea abnormalities. Those were all birth defects listed in the side effects, and it was 3 years after! It's bad stuff, and I still have acne 12 years later along with the monitoring of my labs.

 

[js]

For my 12 yo DD's acne that we've been trying to control on our own for a year now. Epiduo and Solodyn.

I have insurance and the dermatologist gave me some coupons, but OMG! She may be on this stuff for quite awhile. The Solodyn is only a 1 month supply and they estimated the Epiduo to last for about 6 weeks.

Because of the coupons, I don't know what this is going to really be costing on an ongoing basis. I think the Epiduo is a recurring coupon, but the Solodyn was a one time use.

I have no real question. Just feeling ! This could be a budget buster!

ETA: This is not what I paid OOP!!!! (I guess it's late, I'm tired and I didn't proofread my post to realize it may sound like I paid that much!) This is the retail price. I had coupons that made the Solodyn free and the Epiduo $25. The Solodyn is the one that is over $1K and I do not know what my portion will be next month with no coupon. Like I said, I do have insurance. I've just never seen a medication cost that much money! I was shocked!

Oh my! I am 47 and use Epiduo too
I pay $5. Solodyn I pay $5 too.

 

[js]

I strongly advise anyone against Accutane. I took it for 3 months and had horrible side effects to the point where I was hospitalized due to it depleting my immune system. After that happened, we started looking up the side effects (I had been told it was a wonderful drug before hand) and found that it does everything to cause blindness (may or may not resolve when stopping it), cancer in lab animals, and people that do react to it have a higher incidence of auto immune disease later in life. The book of side effects was almost 3/4" thick, and they were all serious ones (not head ache or nausea). I had my daughter about 3 years after taking it, and she had low set ears, eye abnormalities, and trachea abnormalities. Those were all birth defects listed in the side effects, and it was 3 years after! It's bad stuff, and I still have acne 12 years later along with the monitoring of my labs.

I am happy to hear you are off Accutane. I do not understand why people take this medication? I remember about/over 20 years ago I worked with someone that started taking it and she was telling me that she had to get her liver checked all the time while on it. My face gets bad sometimes but I would still never take that drug. Nothing really works for me, just helps it look a little better but nothing has ever made my skin look great.
I did, however, purchase this weekend the Cindy Crawford skin line LOL
I will use that with my meds (which I also take orally) and see how that works. I didn't tell anyone that I purchased it since I want to see if anyone notices a difference.

 

[tvguy]

My prescription coverage changed January 1, 2013. I have to pay full retail until I have paid $2,500 out of pocket. One months of BP meds takes care of the deductable.

 

[sherreis]

My son had horrible acne as well. We did a diet detox and found out that when he gets rid of all dairy products (milk, cheese, ice cream, yogurt, whey, etc.), his skin becomes crystal clear.

Just a thought.

 

[pk1959]

One of my sons had bad acne when he was younger also. We did the medical spa treatments of lasers, microdermabrasion, red and blue light therapy, peels, and retin a treatments. We were told if those didn't work, that accutane would be the next step. NO WAY was I doing the accutane after reading up on it. All this was after trying every over the counter product, and also Proactiv. While his acne did end up much better, it was not gone even after all those treatments.

His girlfriend bought him a Clairsonic and the acne cleanser that goes along with it and his face TOTALLY cleared up and has stayed that way for many years. I was amazed at what that thing did for him. So much so that I bought a Clairsonic for myself. Maybe it will work as well for wrinkles!!

 

[Cynt]

Your Dr./Dermatologist have coupons. Go back to them and get more coupons when you run out. I have terrible eczema and use coupons all the time. When I run out I just get more from my dermatologist.

 

[EMode]

I strongly advise anyone against Accutane. I took it for 3 months and had horrible side effects to the point where I was hospitalized due to it depleting my immune system. After that happened, we started looking up the side effects (I had been told it was a wonderful drug before hand) and found that it does everything to cause blindness (may or may not resolve when stopping it), cancer in lab animals, and people that do react to it have a higher incidence of auto immune disease later in life. The book of side effects was almost 3/4" thick, and they were all serious ones (not head ache or nausea). I had my daughter about 3 years after taking it, and she had low set ears, eye abnormalities, and trachea abnormalities. Those were all birth defects listed in the side effects, and it was 3 years after! It's bad stuff, and I still have acne 12 years later along with the monitoring of my labs.

We are trying to avoid taking it, it will be the last resort if we decide to do it.

I am happy to hear you are off Accutane. I do not understand why people take this medication? I remember about/over 20 years ago I worked with someone that started taking it and she was telling me that she had to get her liver checked all the time while on it. My face gets bad sometimes but I would still never take that drug. Nothing really works for me, just helps it look a little better but nothing has ever made my skin look great.
I did, however, purchase this weekend the Cindy Crawford skin line LOL
I will use that with my meds (which I also take orally) and see how that works. I didn't tell anyone that I purchased it since I want to see if anyone notices a difference.

There are many medications that have horrible side effects, but they don't effect everyone the same. I know a few people who have used Accutane, never had any horrible side effects except extremely dry lips and their acne has cleared and they have stayed clear.
Its not something I want my dd on, but I know what effect serious acne can have on a teen and even in the future when the acne is gone but the physical scars remain. I don't want my dd to go through that either.

 

[EMode]

My prescription coverage changed January 1, 2013. I have to pay full retail until I have paid $2,500 out of pocket. One months of BP meds takes care of the deductable.

That is nice, our meds do not count toward our deductible but they do count toward our annual OOP maximum.

 

[splah]

My son takes epiduo and solydyne. The coupons we were given are good towards each refill. Our Target pharmacy is also good about looking up coupons for us to use too so you might ask your pharmacist.

 

[Iowajes]

My previous insurance was a thing where you had to pay the price out of pocket (with the insurance company negotiating slightly lower) and then they sent you a check to cover the portion the insurance company discount.

So I had a medicine that was $800 retail, the insurance company price was $600, and I had to pay a 20% co-pay (once my deductible was met). Which means out of pocket I had to pay $600. Then I wait 3 weeks to get a $480 check from the company.

It was fine for us (and I kinda liked the system because I got credit card points- my insurance now I just pay the copay, which I think is more normal), but if someone lived tightly- that would have been a nightmare!

 

[Moniqu17]

Make sure you have a good dermatologist too. I went to a few before finding one to treat my acne. I've always had light acne but it was cystic so painful and took forever for even one spot to go away. Few years ago finally found someone who said it was at least partially hormonal. He put me on a topical and oral. Luckily I only had to be on oral a few months and the topical keeps it clear now. I tried proactive, epiduo and others but they really need to know what type to treat since the meds target only certain types or underlying causes.

 

[MrsPooh]

The price of prescription meds can be unbelievable. Nearly ten years ago I was very ill for nearly a year. I was prescribed four different meds for most of the time. They kept me alive and I am grateful for that but the cost made it nearly impossible for us to keep me on them.

Just one of the meds cost (at that time) $55/pill and I needed three a day. That meant the retail cost per month was about $5,000. Our insurance at the time would cover them but only a few days at a time so we had to pay the copay amount every few days. When our insurance changed at my husband's work they decided to pay for only 14 pills a month. When those ran out we couldn't afford more and I ended up hospitalized because I couldn't afford the med. They saved on prescription cost but ended up paying for most of a huge hospital bill. There was not a generic available at the time.

I understand that drug companies need to make money but the cost of most meds is unrealistic.

 

[abmitch01]

my deem gave me meds for my adult acne that were cheap for the first 3 months then sky rocketed. He knew this would happen so he changed me over to generics that work just as well. He has been very understanding that even just the co-pays can be too much on the higher cost drugs. My co-pays on the generics are $10 for 3 months each