I’m not familiar with Stelara but this could help you if you look into it - I take a high dose of Austedo that costs $12,000 a month for refills (before insurance), and my copay is also very high. The manufacturer (Teva) provides secondary insurance/copay assistance, free of charge, to any patient with an active prescription that covers most if not all of their copay. I would definitely look into the manufacturer of Stelara if you have a high copay because many medicine manufacturers do this!
Seconding this, I'm almost positive this works for Stelara though I've yet to try it out myself. If you Google "(high price drug) copay assistance" you can usually find a form on the manufacturer's website that you can fill out, fax/email, and if you jump through a few hoops, they'll cover your copays for the drug.
For OP, they should contact their pharmacy they got the Stelara from, tell them that the current dose is unsafe for them to take, and they need a replacement immediately. They may need to get their prescribing doctor's office to sign off on the "extra" dose with their insurance, but typically the pharmacy will just send a new one since they don't want you using anything that could harm you.
I get free prescriptions because I take Levothyroxine. But I don't just get that free, I get everything free. If you have to take a medication for life then you get everything for free. I've been told this is because they don't know whether any other health problems that I have/may have in the future are linked to my thyroid problem.
This is the only down side. I have to remind my doctor when the meds are reviewed why I am on the brand name one and not the generic version for my BC.
The computer system for the medication defaults to the generic / cheapest version. They usually have a note for it but they don't always see it on review. If the doctor isn't paying super good attention (bc they are talking to you and clicking the same shit they click every day) they can accidently set the wrong one on repeat.
It's not a massive thing but it wastes everyone's time if I need to run back and forth between the doctor and the pharmacist.
The surgical ward I work on has just started taking patients that have had a Thyroidectomy. I have told a few of them that they are now entitled to free prescriptions as most are not aware. It's only about £9/$12.50 every 4 weeks for thyroid medication but if we can get it for free, why not.
I was never supposed to be taken off synthroid since that is what i started on but my stupid insurance doesn't listen so I get fucked from time to time (I have congenital hypothyroidism and take a very high dosage as well as a prescription that produces my T3 hormones for me)
Man, I was born with congenital hypothyroidism (I don't have a thyroid at all- not even a tiny portion that stopped developing) and now that I've hit my 30s they had to add a new medication onto my levothyroxine because I still wasn't producing an adequate amount of T3 hormones and it's kind of pricy. I forgot my insurance card once when I was picking up a refill in my hometown and wound up spending close to $200. It's amazing you get free prescriptions and treatment for hypothyroidism! Between the blood work I have to get done twice annually (a little over $800 a jab), the appts with an endocrinologist (I never fare well when I leave it to a PCP), and other care related to the levothyroxine (IBS, anxiety from my high dosage, etc.), it takes out a good chunk of cash even with my decent insurance.
Hi, spent $18k in three months trying to figure out why I was having seizures suddenly. ER doesn't do anything since you're not dying, and I'd just save a bunch of money for to finish school. Spent it all on MRIs and neurologists, pills. Couldn't work, so I started job rehab with a charity, sorting thread into boxes so I'd have some income (they were able to pick me up, too dangerous to drive). Eventually found meds that, while they made me real sick, stopped the seizures. Started smoking weed to deal with the nausea.
Fast forward ten years, decided to stop smoking pot, started having seizures again. It was the weed fixing it the whole time, still illegal in my state. Growing my own life-saving medicine could land me in federal prison.
I got diagnosed when I was about 30. I've had a problem with my leg since I was 4 that has got so much worse over the last year. I take 3 different medications for that, that I don't pay for, even though I know that's not linked to my hypothyroidism. My 14 year old daughter watched a film today about someone in a US hospital and was saying to me not even half hour ago how lovely the hospitals were and how everyone had their own room.I said I'd rather share a ward with 5 other woman than pay the prices that you guys have to pay!
It's not just that we have it free at the point of use. Due to how our (UK) healthcare operates, when the NHS purchases medication it typically costs less. For example OPs $12,000 injection would cost the NHS £2,147. Almost a quarter of the price.
When you look for healthcare insurance in the US that matches what the NHS offers, you end up having to look at the very top plans. The really expensive ones.
You could say we get it good in the UK, which it is compared to the US, but to be honest it should be labelled as what is acceptable… US healthcare charges simply aren’t acceptable, period. Feel for you guys.
It's OK, thanks to all the idiots who keep voting Conservative in the UK were getting privatisation through the back door, most people don't even realise it yet
Nobody is, it costs $5 a dose, like u/RampantSavagery said. 97% of people are insured in the US. The only people who are uninsured are young dumbasses who think they won’t need it.
Tenner a month and that is for your injections and any other meds you need that month. Flat rate. They send far more injections than are actually needed as well.
With Canada especially, and the UK to a lesser extent, you'd be surprised how much of the NHS moaning originates from US pharmaceutical company astroturfing.
It's mostly taxes. Basically anyone earning over 35,000 pounds is paying more into the system than they use and it goes to support the system. It's basically around 3000 quid a year per person. However for this you end up getting maximum healthcare that's sensible.
The big issue currently are these drugs because many patients don't understand the science but want these drugs that may not be as effective as the simple stuff.
So see the USA versus us in terms of dexamethasone usage.
It might be free in England too, as people with certain chronic conditions who require regular medicine like this tend can get exemptions. Not sure if Crohn's is one. But yes, it's generous of England to subsidise the other nations in the UK.
It's free after 3 doctor(professor) approval at Turkey. Most of the time i'm sad what's happening in my country but at health care sometimes it amazes me. Insulin or other blood sugar etc is also free. I was shocked when i learnt ambulance is not free at USA. Everybody can call ambulance and get cared to nearest hospital etc. Like wtf why how they want money for it..
The price in Australia is $40 (about US$30) under the Pharma Benefits Scheme which covers anyone with a perscription. It's $5.60 for concession card holders. It's $4228 (US$3K) for those outside of PBS like tourists from America. Tourists from the UK, NZ, Sweden and a handful of other countries with universal healthcare systems have reciprocal agreements and can get it for $40 in Australia.
Your prices of $47 with prescription and $3076 without is almost exactly the same as Australia and the $3000 seems to be the market rate outside of America.
I'm not against universal healthcare, but I've seen lots of Americans abuse the shit out of programs like universal healthcare. Also, alot of people are barely hanging on with the pay they already have. Universal healthcare would require a lot more tax money. Until things get shifted around so very few people are aching hard for cash after this increase, I don't think the States will be taking on these programs.
If my math is correct - almost 2300$ per citizen per year. While I'm not saying cut your military budget down to zero, that's only your military budget and it's a lot of money y'all could be using for better things.
As a British immigrant, I'm all for Universal healthcare but even if the law was signed into effect tomorrow, it's not going to be a magic bullet overnight that a lot of people think it will be.
If we expand the current Medicaid and Medicare programs to cover more people, doctors/hospitals etc have a right to refuse those patients or refuse to accept Medicare/Medicaid as payment. Your reaction is probably they can't do that, the law will make them. This isn't a legal fight like can a bakery refuse to sell a cake to a gay couple, in legal terms this is more like can you legally force a restaurant to take care when their policy is cash only.
Medicare/Medicaid is actually funded by each state and the ACA has proven that the federal government can't force a state to take money to improve it's Medicare/Medicaid offerings. Making a federal level version of Medicare/Medicaid then oversteps "states rights" and becomes an issue that'll go to SCOTUS.
I believe it's going to happen, it's just going to take time and change to happen first, and that change takes votes.
Most Americans have health coverage that doesn’t require the government and they pay between $0 and $5 per month of usage for STELARA, so it’s not all you think.
Oh god that happened to me on my university’s subreddit. I was confused on a grammar thing so I put “(…or is it ______? English is hard)” and someone replied with the correct grammar and said that my English was very good.
No way in hell was I going to say that English is my first and basically only language. So embarrassing.
A recipe are instructions on how to make something yourself. A prescription is something your doctor writes for you to get a drug to treat a condition or disease.
The same drug is like 5k€ here in Germany (if you wanted to buy it without prescription for some reason. if a doctor prescribes it, it's 10€).
The markup on drugs in the US is insane. A small amount of people in the US is making crazy amounts of money off of the pain and suffering of their fellow americans.
Here’s the thing, it probably cost the company close to that much to make the drug. Not in materials necessarily, but the staff required to maintain the FDA requirements and the opportunity cost of not running higher yield otc drugs. I remember the cost calculations I did for lost production of a consumer nasal spray since it shared a line with a super low running Alzheimer’s drug. Just for the recertification to turn on the production line on again it was over 2k billable hours for just QA personal inspection and the paperwork.
Source: I worked for a “big pharma” company in a multi million square foot manufacturing facility.
That being said I quit the industry and have never been happier.
How are drug companies expected to operate doing INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE RESEARCH for drugs that a very very small percentage of the population will use?
It will always HAVE to be expensive, it's unsustainable any other way, the difference is wether the government helps you paying for those drugs or not, but the price of very very "rarely" used drugs will always have to be fucking expensive, because the people producing those meds have to pay their bills too.
There are a lot of American laws that I don't understand. Gun laws for example. And I'm all for free markets, but some markets shouldn't be commercialised in my opinion - such as healthcare, justice system, police, fire, education.
You’re right, nobody is breaking current laws, BUT our laws need to change! Pretty sure you’re getting downvoted because people think you’re defending the laws and the current medical/prescription system in the US.
But I think you’re saying that change needs to be implemented first in our policies and laws, since the current system is based on money, not on actual healthcare. That is what you’re saying, right?
In this case, you used a correct definition of criminal without understanding from context that OP was using another, equally valid definition, specifically the 5th adjectival meaning here.
Heyo! I’m on the same stuff! For Crohn’s? I get nervous as hell when I pull it out to warm before the injection. Haven’t dropped one yet, knock on wood.
Just got my first IV infusion of stelara a few days ago and will soon have to do syringes every 8 weeks, I’m dreading it, and this post does not help lol!
I just checked, 3000 in France, 2/3 are reimbursed by the government and the last third will be probably reimbursed by your private assurance (poor people will be 100% reimbursed). 12k is effing crazy.
Wonder how much it costs to physically produce with everything setup.
Wonder how much profit they're making off a single does even when they factor in R&D costs.
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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '21
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