me and march 08
i am sick.
i have no health insurance.
treatment for my illness can get relatively expensive.
that makes me worry about money sometimes.
trying different medications is a necessary part of my journey.
today i went to fill my prescriptions.
the nice lady brought them to the counter.
one of them (my sleeping aid) is so super cheap. like ten dollars or so.
that is awesome.
my oxcarbazepine has been increased since last month. i knew it would be a little more expensive.
a new medication has been introduced in order to try and ween me off the stimulants i currently take. i take them because when i hit my lows, i fucking HIT them. hard. the stimulants have worked a little bit in at least giving me some energy to help fight the low periods. the new medication is armodafinil. he wrote me two doses. 150 mg for the first two weeks, and 250 mg from then on. i had no idea how much these might run me. my doctor gave me a card that gave me my first prescription for free, and up to 20% off my next twelve refills. super cool, right? also, the pharmacy that i go to offers a prescription savings card. basically it is 20 dollars a year and it saves you money on your prescriptions. it is no set amount, so i have saved anywhere from 5 dollars to 150 dollars, depending on the medication. however, even with this card, my medication costs can be outrageous sometimes.
when the pharmacist brought the four bags to me, she looked me over and asked, “are you aware of the costs of these medications?”
it was right then that i knew i was fucked.
maybe it was my large amount of tattoos, maybe it was my twelve dollar cardigan sweater. or maybe it was even my ratty as shit converse shoes. she looked concerned. and now i was concerned.
“um…no,” i said.
“okay, this one (pointing to the armodafinil) is two separate prescriptions (because of the two different doses) so here is the price of those.”
i looked, and after my savings of 84 dollars, they came out to be 439.99. each. almost 900 dollars for the two. for one goddamn month.
i looked at the other ones quickly. the sleeping aid was its usual 10 dollars. the other one, since it had been increased, and after my savings of 204 dollars was still 172 dollars. i looked back at the first one. it was still way too close to 900 fucking dollars for my taste.
for one month.
1062 dollars. for my british buddies, i believe that lands somewhere around 670 pounds.
for one month.
i used my free prescription card for one of the new ones. the higher dose. i told her to hold on to the other one and i would be back for it (a lie.) i was also able to get the pharmacist to divide the 172 dollar one in half, and i told her i would also come back for the rest of those (probably will.) and got my sleep aid. so today i only paid about 97 dollars.
i’m of two minds right now. i would love for this new medication to be it, the answer i was looking for. something that calms me down enough, helps stabilize my moods, and helps me with the whole ‘not wanting to die almost every day’ thing. that would be amazing. but then, on the other hand, i don’t know if i would even be able to afford my happiness.
this system is so fucking wrong.
i work a full-time job. i don’t know how i do it, but somehow i do. i am fortunate enough to have bosses that are sympathetic to my struggles and don’t give me a bunch of shit if i suddenly have to go home or if i go out to my car to cry for an hour during the day. i am lucky to be where i am.
i’ve thought about trying city or state programs to help me with these costs. i know i need to do it, but to be honest, my head nears explosion when i start. they certainly don’t make it easy. or even far from impossible. i try. i would never want to be the person who does nothing and expects a bunch of something for it. i will keep trying. but there are some days when even beginning the process is just too much. and even if i go through the process, there is no guarantee that it would be much better for me at all.
there is so much more to say about this. i can’t do it right now. this post isn’t meant for sympathy or anything of the sort. i just want people to know how this works sometimes.
it sucks. it sucks. it sucks.
and there you have it.
alltheavenueslookugly 
It is such bullshit! I’m lucky enough to have health insurance now, over priced and doesn’t cover much but that is the only type I can afford. I can’t even imagine the costs of your doctor visits on top of the meds. What pisses me off is all the people that take advantage of the system while people like you who bust your ass get nothing.
yeah, even having the health insurance doesn’t guarantee that it will help you in any way, and you are right about it being way over-priced.
i feel sad for those who can’t even afford what i can. those whose illness has left them penniless and wandering the streets. and instead of helping them out, the state of texas cuts the funding and then bitches about the homeless population as if they all chose to be that way. 😦
It certainly does suck and the system is twisted!
I think my Seroquel is ‘expensive’ when I’ll be needing to buy it when I leave the hospital, but we’re talking about 20-30 USD equivalent a month. That’s expensive for here.
I wish there was some organisation or someone who could help you. I don’t understand what you are meant to do with such a hefty bill to pay!
Wishing you the best,
The Quiet Borderline
http://quietbpd.wordpress.com/
i am looking into some options, but god they make it so difficult! and they always have a cut off point, like if you make too much money, which i cannot imagine i do. but even if i do, it cannot be much more than the cutoff point. so it would really be awful if i made just a little too much. ugh. the process itself just seems exhausting.
hope you are doing well, friend. have a great day.
For sure the process can be exhausting within itself. Lucky for me, I have a social worker here who deals with the red tape for me, dealing with the municipality for getting my benefits and stuff.
I wish you good luck and hope you can find what you need and deserve.
The Quiet Borderline
http://quietbpd.wordpress.com/
Have you gone to your doctor and told them about your problem paying for treatment? I know here in PA, if you are “medically needy”, meaning you have a disorder that requires expensive, lifelong treatment, they will usually put you on Medicaid. I mean, if you have no other options of insurance and are within the income threshold, both I’m assuming are you.
I got a lot of help through my doctor’s office. They gave me a form, I filled it out, gave it back to my doc, he signed off on it, and in about a month I had to have a telephone interview with a woman to confirm all of these things. And it was fine.
Ask your doctor. That’s what they’re there for.
wow, that does sound incredibly easy. see, my doctor knows i can’t afford huge bills for treatment. that’s why in the past he has tried to prescribe me medicines that his office had samples of so he could just give me the samples. it seems as if that were an option, he would have told me. maybe it is and he just didn’t think of it. i will certainly ask him next time i go.
thank you for that suggestion!
You’re welcome. I went through that too, and I had to figure it out by myself. Any info I have that anyone else needs to make their life easier is info I’m willing to give.
I would go to county resources Sean and see if they can offer prescription assistance. Sometimes it is based on income and they use a sliding fee.
For me personally, I made sure my Doc put me on generics (if there was one) for the meds I was on. The only one that is a bit expensive is my Lamictal and through the med company, I get assistance for a full year. See what help you can find out there. I know that it is difficult… but maybe start by making some phone calls to your county mental facilities to see if you can get any information. Or maybe from your Psych… tell them it is a must. They should have resources to refer you to. ♥
i am looking into what the county has to offer as far as assistance. hopefully i can find something there. unfortunately, the state of texas has slashed mental health funding dramatically, so much so that they were forced to close a facility here in houston.
bastards.
but i will check into it. thank you. 🙂
i want to thank everybody for their input and suggestions. any thing i can try and do might help. i really really appreciate it! 🙂
Stupid cuts of mental health funding!!!! I swear… we need a schizo President… that BS wouldn’t happen anymore would it?? Makes me so peeved.
Everything that is mental related is crumbling closed here and in NV too. In Las Vegas, most of our homeless population is mentally ill because we they closed they state facility, they had no place to go. 😦 Isn’t that disgusting??
Keep looking my friend… there has to be someone with a “hookup”. LOL, my therapist seems to have the hookup to EVERYTHING mental health. haha
I’m close enough to the Mexico border that I should just start going down there for my meds. Would be much much cheaper. America needs to get it’s act together. 🙂
I.
Hate.
Money.
Yours and mine.