If you have been prescribed expensive medications from your doctor, you could face difficult decisions to be able to pay for your pills. With the cost of medications seemingly increasing all the time, if you don’t have any or sufficient medical insurance, out-of-pocket payments can get unmanageably large. However, there are some alternatives to this difficult problem. Quite often, it is possible to switch from the prescription drug authorized by your doctor to another which is just as effective. And what’s more, these other comparable drugs should be considerably cheaper than the brand pills prescribed by your physician.
The comparable drugs could be manufactured by competing pharmaceutical companies or they could be available in generic varieties. Either way, these other comparable drugs should save you a lot of money on your medical expenses.
We take a look at how you can save money while still paying for affordable drugs to treat your medical condition.
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Are Alternatives Available?
There aren’t going to be comparable drugs or generics available for every type of drug. If the type of pills you have been prescribed is very new, there aren’t going to be any generic alternatives. However, there could still be similar comparable medications offered by other companies.
Large pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money on marketing their newest drugs to doctors, sometimes offering incentives to choose their pills when prescribing to patients. This situation is part of the reason why medical bills are as large as they are. But with a little research, you can avoid this situation and make a big saving on your medical bills.
A simple Google search should reveal if there are generic alternatives available to you. Drug patents only last for 20 years after they have first been filed with the FDA. Though this isn’t really quite as long as it sounds, as the pills will not have been sold as soon as the patent was filed.
Despite this, there could be a delay of at least 10 years before generic medications can be created. Generic medications are typically manufactured by companies that do not have to invest money in expensive research and development for new medications.
The patent system, while increasing medical prices, is actually a good thing. It ensures that companies are incentivized to put money into research and development to create new treatments for patients. The result of these new treatments should be better results for patients, though initially, the cost of the pills is going to be high.
If you find that generics are available for the drug treatment you have been prescribed, you stand to save a lot on drug purchases. If there aren’t generics available, they could still be comparable treatments.
Popular generic drugs:
- Vicodin – generic version of Hydrocodone
- Simvastatin – generic Zocor
- Lipitor – generic Atorvastatin
- Metformin – generic Glucophage
- Lisinopril – generic Prinivil
Your Google search might have revealed similar treatment options, but you should check with your doctor or pharmacist to find out if these are both cheaper and similarly effective. There is also the issue of whether these other treatments are compatible with other pills you are taking, and whether they are suitable treatment options for you.
Unfortunately, because of the issues we have already pointed to, your doctor may not be keen to help you find an alternative. Checking with a pharmacist, or even getting the opinion of another physician may help you find out if the cheaper pills are a comparable treatment option for you.
It is possible there could be increased side effects with a different treatment or less effective results, so you need to make sure you are doing the right thing before you choose to switch to more affordable drugs.
How to Switch to Cheaper Medications?
Making the switch to cheaper medical drugs could save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, over the course of your treatment. If you have found out that there are pills available for less money, that do the same things for the patient, it is time to switch.
To allow you to switch to more affordable medication, you will need your physician to change your prescription. This prescription can then be sent to a pharmacy offering you the best price.
This step in the process can be very intimidating, however, but you need to have the courage to make the change so that you can dramatically reduce the cost of your prescriptions. You have more power in this situation than you imagine, call your doctor’s office so that you can authorize the substitution of your medication prescription.
You might find that an online pharmacy is offering the best discount on the medications you require. However, there are an awful lot of online pharmacies that simply aren’t reputable or safe for customers to use.
Though they might be offering amazing prices on the pills you need, how do you know that they are reliable? If you check online pharmacy reviews 2021 for the latest findings for reliable or scam drug stores, you can save a lot of problems.
Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of online pharmacies that may have good prices but don’t provide medications that are from reliable sources. This might mean that the pills you buy from the store affect your health in very negative ways when you are just trying to treat a condition.
Even if the pharmacy looks legit, this can be deceptive. Scam pharmacies often mislead their customers about where they are based, for obvious reasons.
The pharmacy might claim to be a Canadian drugstore, whereas in reality they might actually be based in China, Pakistan, or India. And if you are giving your credit card information and personal details to these anonymous businesses, there is a real risk that they will steal your credit card details and sell your personal information.
This could mean that you find yourself having to negotiate with your credit card company over purchases you didn’t make. If your personal information is sold and used by criminals, it will harm your credit score and make getting a loan in the future difficult.
But you can still get cheap medications online from cheaper pharmacies if you do some research. Reading customer feedback on these sites isn’t exactly going to help either, since it is very common for scam pharmacies to use fake customer feedback. Your only real option to make sure you don’t get scammed is to check the latest online pharmacy reviews 2021.
Pharmacy reviews look at the details the store provides, checking background information to find out if the claims they are making are true.
All too often, these online pharmacies are providing fake information and lying to their potential customers to get more sales. Any such pharmacy that does this isn’t likely to have their customers’ best interests at heart and is more likely to be selling medications that are not fit for their true purpose.
Scam pharmacies might be selling pills that look reliable, but they could actually be counterfeit. It is impossible to tell if the meds contain the correct ingredients just by looking at them. Counterfeit drugs also used packaging that looks exactly like the real thing, and only experts will be able to tell the difference.
What Do You Do With Your Old Medications?
You are likely to still have some of your old pills when you make the change to a cheaper alternative. The important point here is to make sure that you don’t mistakenly take both sets of medications at the same time. This will effectively double your dosage and is something you really don’t want to do.
You could simply get rid of the old medications and start on the new ones, but it might be better to finish the pills you have before you change.
You should also be careful with the disposal of unused or expired medicine. There are drug take-back sites and programs available so that you can make sure your drugs are disposed of correctly.
The FDA also provides information about which drugs you can and should flush immediately. Some medications are potentially dangerous and should be flushed down the toilet as soon as possible. However, there are some drugs that you really shouldn’t flush, and they also have a list of these. Check the FDA’s website for details or to find a drug take-back facility near you.
Conclusion
The biggest cause of bankruptcy in the United States of America is medical expenses. But you can reduce your medical costs by taking a slightly different approach. Some research can reveal cheaper medication options that will save you a lot of money.
If you then combine this by going to cheaper sources of pills, like online pharmacies, you will save a significant amount of money. This will allow you to afford the medications you need to deal with your medical conditions and make your life better. And if you make sure you use a reliable source for your medications, you’re saving money without risking your life if buying low-quality drugs or counterfeit meds.
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POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES
There are also quite many online pharmacies on the net that have proved themselves to be excellent ones. We keep an eye on them as well. They get into our reviews from time to time, and you can see them on the pages of our site.We have placed the best online pharmacies into a separate list on the Pharmacy Ratings page. Ratings of online pharmacies that have successfully passed verification and check by our team: Link>>>
