How To Receive Help With Your Prescription Medication
The present financial downturn has affected numerous patient’s ability to pay for their prescription drugs. Help with prescription medicine is available. Some drug companies are responding with superior prescription medication aid. Merck, which makes Singulair for asthma, Januvia for diabetes and Fosamax for osteoporosis, increased the amount of total yearly income a family can receive and nevertheless meet the requirements for free medication in March. People making less than $43,000 and families of four making less than $88,000 nowadays can qualify for assistance with prescription medicine. Merck says it has helped 1.9 million patients with $1.7 billion of prescription medication over the last seven years. Help for prescription medicine is available from other companies also.
“We are committed to helping patients, and that commitment is evident in the $140 million of financial assistance we provided in 2008,” spokesperson Shannon Altimari from drug creator Biogen states. Biogen Idec provides assistance for prescription Avonex and Tysabri which is used for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Pfizer announced a program at an earlier time this year called Maintain that provides complimentary medicine to out of work people who require prescription medication aid. Maintain is just one of more than a few patient assistance programs that the manufacturer provides.
AstraZeneca just announced that it was changing its medicine assistance program to supply help earlier to selected people. The company’s program offers at no cost prescription drugs or low-cost medicine to uninsured, low-income people. AstraZeneca said in a statement that it “would immediately extend assistance to qualifying patients who have lost their jobs, had their incomes reduced or had a change in marital status or family size”. The manufacturer said these types of individuals had been having troubles qualifying for prescription medicine for the reason that their tax returns showed exceedingly high an income. Qualifying Americans can promptly sign up by providing documentation of their current earnings and household size, AstraZeneca said.
Bob Adams is a patient that has experienced such troubles. The 52 -year-old cab driver was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2002 . His pay from social security and a tiny disability policy barely covers his mortgage, health bills, and other living expenses. “I have tried all sorts of things to see if I can obtain prescription medicine assistance,” he claims. He called the prescription companies, Social Security, and his physician’s staff. He has also followed quite a few leads on the Internet and at last found a company that would manage all of the red tape for him.
His prescription cost over $600 a month and his medical costs are more than $300 per month. “There were times when I have had to omit taking my drugs for a day or two,” he admits. He is not certain what the future holds for him but at least now he is getting the assistance with prescriptions that he needs.
