Any other old timers having any problems with Medicare or prescription drugs?

[kentuck]

Last week, I went to fill a prescription and the price had gone up about 100%.

I went to get another prescription filled yesterday. I was told by email that it was ready for pick-up at Walgreens. When I got there, I waited in line for about 30-45 minutes only to be told the insurance company had not yet approved it?

Anybody else having any similar problems?

Just curious.

[question everything]

1. No, but you may want to check with your insurnace company

and I hope it is not one of these for profit one.

Yes, many of the generic have gone up in price, but 100% is high.

You may want to look at the insurance company formulary with their different tiers. Some may have changed from, say, Tier 1 to Tier 3, or no longer in the formulary.

Good luck

[kentuck]

2. Thanks!

I have Kaiser Permente.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Scary, if Kaiser makes life hard, cant imagine what the real bad actors will do.

[matt819]

4. Not quite ready for Medicare

Give me a few years.

As for prescriptions, I use Canada Drugs for everything over the usual $15 or so for generics.

One medication that insurance required me to pay $75 per month for I got at Canada Drugs for just under less than half of that.

Same thing with a variety of asthma meds.

And get this. These are US-made medications exported to Australia or Great Britain and then sold to me for less than half of what the same meds cost here. Now that's fucked up.

[magicarpet]

5. Unwashed commoners....

..... only life purpose is to enrich the select elite.

[moriah]

6. Every year during open enrollment I input all my meds....

... into the medicare dot gov Plan Finder, and find the plan that has my prescriptions the cheapest.

This year we're getting a tiering exception processed for my PTSD medication as it's a generic but in third tier.

I also found a fund that covers my asthma inhaler copays, called the PAN Foundation. They only help Medicare recipients in this program, but it means I can get Advair, Spriva, and my rescue inhalers even through the donut hole.

[Wounded Bear]

7. VA Medical here...

My copays went up, almost doubled.

They charged for a visit they didn't used to.