Prescription medicine can be as debilitating as hospitalization expenses. Even if you have received medical bills assistance and managed to keep your costs down while you were at the hospital, debts are unavoidable especially if you are prescribed by your doctor branded medicines that are way too expensive for your budget.
It’s no secret that some doctors receive incentives from pharmaceutical companies for recommending their products, you can avoid this by informing your doctor beforehand that you are on a budget and if possible to prescribe you generic medicines instead of branded ones. Don’t believe for a second that expensive medicines being sold by multinational pharmaceutical companies are more effective than the generic ones. The Consumer Reports National Research Center swears by the efficacy and safeness of generic drugs compared to the name-brand medicines.
Medical practitioners are also given samples by the drug companies as part of their perks and also to allow them to assess if the product really works. Maybe you can ask for some samples, especially if you have already established a relationship with your doctor. If there’s no generic counterpart for the branded medicine he prescribed, ask for an alternative over-the-counter drug. Remember that whatever medical bills assistance you get will redound to nothing if you don’t get your maintenance costs in check.
Order by bulk. Research online for any special promo on prescription drugs or buy from wholesale outlets and big-box retailers. Large chains of retail stores also offer special packages for medicines that will entitle you to huge discounts for generic drugs. Your doctor may also know and mail-order drug store that is amenable to supplying you with more medicines, say for a two- or three-month supply, for a much lesser price.
If your doctor is not very accommodating to your request, you can just take his or her prescription, bring it to the nearest pharmacy and ask for its generic counterpart. The pharmacist should be able to help in this regard and that can yield hundreds of dollars of savings on your part. Unlike hospitalization expenses where you can receive medical bills assistance from a multitude of resources (e.g. charity programs, federal grants, financial assistance from hospital and religious organizations), with medicines you are basically on your own.