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canyonwalkerI got bad news when I went to refill one of my prescriptions last week. I now have to pay $2,000 for it. Previously my out of pocket cost was zero.
What changed? My company changed insurance carriers effective January 1. Although both my old plan and my new plan are HDHPs/HSAs with similar specs on paper, one of the hard-to-figure-out-in-advance details was that the new insurer, United HealthCare, has far fewer drugs on its maintenance/preventive drug list than my previous insurer, Anthem Blue Cross. With Anthem all the prescriptions I take were covered at no cost to me as part of their preventive care. With United HealthCare seemingly nothing is considered preventive care. One prescription I refilled a few weeks ago was merely $100/year. But this other one is a whopping $2,000.
What am I doing? Well, it's fortunate that this suddenly costly medication isn't life-or-death for me. In fact it's not clear it's even doing much for me. It treats a condition but it only improves it a little. I will make an appointment with my doctor to discuss alternatives that are more effective— and hopefully way less expensive!
What changed? My company changed insurance carriers effective January 1. Although both my old plan and my new plan are HDHPs/HSAs with similar specs on paper, one of the hard-to-figure-out-in-advance details was that the new insurer, United HealthCare, has far fewer drugs on its maintenance/preventive drug list than my previous insurer, Anthem Blue Cross. With Anthem all the prescriptions I take were covered at no cost to me as part of their preventive care. With United HealthCare seemingly nothing is considered preventive care. One prescription I refilled a few weeks ago was merely $100/year. But this other one is a whopping $2,000.
What am I doing? Well, it's fortunate that this suddenly costly medication isn't life-or-death for me. In fact it's not clear it's even doing much for me. It treats a condition but it only improves it a little. I will make an appointment with my doctor to discuss alternatives that are more effective— and hopefully way less expensive!
