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Insurance won't cover brand name meds
Thu, 01/07/2016 - 10:53Hi everyone,
I have gone ten years seizure free thanks to Lamictal and Keppra. The insurance I'm currently on made me pay full price for these meds until we hit our deductible of $3500 and then would allow me to pay a $30 monthly copay for the rest of the coverage year. With how crazy expensive Lamictal and Keppra are, needless to say I hit the deductible by March. Unfortunately, my insurance will change in February and the plans we are looking at no longer cover either drug before or after hitting the deductible. I think there is a process where your doctor can call in and require you to get the brand name. But with many insurance companies you have to fork over a lot more now than a mere copay or they wait for an "event" to occur before allowing you to go back on the brand name. I live in Georgia and we are currently looking at Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Humana. I might be forced to switch to generic if my doctor's appeal to the insurance company isn't successful or the cost is simply too much. I'm terrified of my seizures starting again especially since I have three young children. Has anyone had any success with staying on the brand name drugs, and if so, what insurance company are you with?
Pharmacies are to use
Submitted by just_joe on Thu, 2016-01-07 - 17:57
Pharmacies are to use generics unless the doctor writes "name brand only" I have used keppra and I do know the cost since I was taking keppra before it became generic. Doc knew my situation so when the generic came out I was the person that tested it to see if it was different in any way. Generics work just like the name brand. With all of my meds I have used the generic and they all work. So if the insurance will cover generics use them. My keppra was 985.00 per month and the generic was 535.00, Now that I am not working and on medicare I have no problem either. Thereason plans have been changing is due to Obamacare. By changing the plans to meet government regulations it changing different parts of plans and other things so those that have little insurance and get theirs thru the gov web site get their meds at low prices I know this because I worked on a humana medicare advantage site and when they threw together Obamacare they took 700 billion from medicare to fund Obamacare for the first 3 years. The mandates were supposed to cover the funding but why worry since Obama wrote his EO's stopping them from being collected.