As prescription drug costs rise, it can be difficult to keep up. With the average American paying $1300 a year on prescriptions, this accounts for the highest in the world.
Additionally, drug manufacturers are raising costs by 5% per year, further making it unaffordable.
Here are some ways to lower your prescription costs:
Get health insurance
Having health insurance can be a good way to lower prescription costs.
Paying a reduced rate that is shared by the health insurance company lowers the cost you pay if you were to pay the full retail price.
Having insurance also means that you will be charged under the Tiered system. This is the classification insurance companies use to determine the cost of prescriptions. Tier one is classified as generic drugs and tier 4 is specialty drugs, where you typically pay a percentage of the drug cost.
This classification is set in place to help share the cost of the drug toward your deductible, and once you reach your deductible your drugs can be covered more
Try a discount service
Using a discount service like Good RX can help lower the cost of prescriptions, especially if your insurance does not cover a prescription.
Services like this are available as coupons that can be used at the pharmacy giving discounts as high as 70% off the prescription costs.
Talk to your doctor
Talking to your doctor about your prescriptions can help lower the cost. Often, your doctor can help lower the cost of your prescriptions by prescribing a generic prescription vs a brand name, which tends to be classified as a tier 2 or 3 prescriptions.
Please note, this is not for everyone, so talking to your doctor is the best way to determine if this is the best option for you.
Although it may not be feasible to not take prescriptions, using these strategies can help make it more affordable each month when visiting the pharmacy.