There are several ways in which the expense of your diabetes medications can be reduced. Many of them apply to medications in general. Whenever possible, you should try to use the medications that are on your insurance plan’s preferred list or those that have the lowest co-pays. These are generally the generic medications. Your doctor should consider prescribing generic medications whenever possible, always weighing in mind the benefits of saving money versus giving you the most effective and safe treatment for your individual condition.
If brand-name medications are necessary, whenever possible your doctor will be willing to prescribe the specific brand that is preferred by your healthcare formulary with the lowest co-payment (first or second tier if more than one brand are available that have little difference between their efficacy and safety). Many plans will fill mail-in prescriptions for a 90-day supply with the same single co-pay as a 30-day supply at a retail pharmacy. Recently, some retail pharmacies have begun to offer the same programs.
Also, some large national chain pharmacies, such as Walmart, have begun to maintain their own formularies with very low co-pays that discount further from those offered by your medical plan. Walmart, Target, and some Ralph’s pharmacies, along with others, will pro-vide a 30-day supply of some generic antidiabetic, blood pressure, and cholesterol drugs for $4.
They will honor these prices even if you do not have medical insurance coverage for your medications. Although the items on these formularies tend to be limited in num-ber and are usually generic, several of the medications commonly used by people with diabetes and related conditions can be found on them. Some plans cover only certain dosage strengths of medications at the lowest co-pay, so these should be prescribed by your doctor when there is a choice.
Finally, a number of brand-name medications are available in a combina-tion formula with a generic medication (for example, pioglitazone with metformin and sitagliptin with metformin) usually at the same price as the brand-name drug alone. In this case, the generic medication is free, as there is only one co-pay for a prescription. However, be sure that the combination preparation is not in a higher tier (co-pay level) than the individual preparations, as there may then be no saving.
Remember that one way not to save money is to ask your doctor to prescribe more medication than you are actually required to take on your prescription in order to make it last longer. This violates the terms of both the doctor’s and your contract with your healthcare plan and the agreements between the healthcare plan and the pharmacy and could result in loss of coverage.