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Permalink Reply by christy on March 12, 2012 at 11:51am

I'm betting though to still get them at your insurance's co-pay you will STILL need a Dr's prescription. Yes and no my opinion on it. I think as much as I dislike going to Dr's Im not paying the retail price of my Humalog out of pocket, The annoyance of going is worth getting the prescription so I can have my insurance pay the costs of my drugs. I do believe if I were without insurance I'd simply go back to using R and NPH and make do the best I can, because until there is a significant drop in retail price of drugs like Lantus/Levemir and Humalog/Novolog I cant see many people bypassing getting a prescription for it. I was told by my pharmacy if I simply wanted to pay out of pocket for my 70/30 it did not require a prescription, but to have my insurance pay for it, it did require a prescription.

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Permalink Reply by goldensun on March 12, 2012 at 5:22pm

Over the counter stuff usually isn't covered by insurance. This may be the real motive, an attempt to relieve us of our hard earned cash.

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Permalink Reply by christy on March 12, 2012 at 5:33pm

And its crazy depending on where you buy 70/30 insulin at I've seen it as cheap as 22 or 23 dollars and as high as nearly 40-50 dollars a vial. Walgreen tends to jack their prices up HIGH, where as Wal-Mart tends to be lower priced. So yeah just cause its older insulin's doesn't necessarily make them cheap either depending on where you are buying them.

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Permalink Reply by christy on March 12, 2012 at 5:47pm

Here is a link to the article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/regulators-consider-waiving-...

This is very interesting because unless they lower the retail out of pocket cost for some of these insulin's HOW are people going to pay for them? My lantus was around 258 for a box of 5 pens, my humalog ran around the same price as well. Good income or not, that would hurt a lot of people financially. Especially for those who are more insulin resistent and inject like its water. Also I noticed how in the article they stated that it would reduce visits to the Dr, and the Dr's time could be spent on those who are more seriously ill. While yes I'm annoyed having to go to the Dr's so much, I also have a pretty strong medical background though, I KNOW when there are problems. Not everyone has that kind of background and really DO need to be seen frequently by their Dr's.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on March 12, 2012 at 5:55pm

In most (all?) of the US, insulin(*) has been OTC, no prescription necessary, for a good chunk of a century. In only a few jurisdictions are the syringes prescription only and bg tests don't need a prescription either.

And I think that's a good thing.

(* The patented analogues excluded).

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Permalink Reply by christy on March 12, 2012 at 6:02pm

Yes Im just wondering by this article if they are included the newer analogues as well. Certainly here in VA I know R/NPH and 70/30 were all available without a prescription for some time. I could have my Dr write for them for insurance coverage at least 14-15 years ago I could still do that. The article was just very vauge in what they were considering making OTC but if they choose to include the newer analogues the out of pocket price is going to have to come down significantly to make that possible for most people.

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Permalink Reply by nel on March 12, 2012 at 6:28pm

But is n't that the usual problem : ...the Media being vague ??

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Permalink Reply by JohnG on March 12, 2012 at 6:37pm

Why should we need a Rx for insulin,  it's like needing a Rx for water or air. A insulin dependent PWD should not  be required  to pay a doctor for the rest of his/her life for a yearly insulin Rx....at some point it should become a lifetime membership.

 

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Permalink Reply by christy on March 12, 2012 at 6:53pm

I agree but Im sure the reason why people go to the Dr on a yearly basis to get that prescription is so they can save a considerable amount of money on their insulin use. My husband and I have great paying jobs, with amazing benefits, we are exptremly fortunate to be in that situation but even so, If I had to pay retail prices for Humalog I'd be going back to some older form like R. THATS why people go to the Dr, these drugs are costly enough even with insurance. They HAVE to lower the retail pice otherwise WHATS the point, not many will be able to afford them.

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Permalink Reply by nel on March 13, 2012 at 10:17pm

I don't need a prescription for insulin , test strips ...eye drops for glaucoma ( the old age type of stuff :) , thyroid , pump infusion sets ,osteroperosis a different story

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Permalink Reply by Gary on March 17, 2012 at 6:16pm

What john said ^

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Permalink Reply by juliannaergrl on March 12, 2012 at 8:05pm

This article doesn't say what diabetes drugs are going to be made available to people so imaybe it's oral meds like metformin? Additionally, just because something is available OTC doesn't mean your insurance doesn't cover it. If my dr prescribes Claritin or zyrtec my insurance still covers it. Same with my pen needles, test strips, lancets, and glucometer... And that all goes through my insurance's prescriptio drug coverage not DME. 
I think if you doctor writes you a script for something long term it should just be accessible to you all the time. 

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