Hélène discovered that drug companies sometimes help patients pay for medication.
Transcript
I have insurance; we are lucky. And I also learned that if you talk to the drug companies they will help you.
In what way? Do you have examples of this?
Yes, I do. He had and he’s had injections for 2 years now. The injections are $3300/month and this treatment he has comes out—we figured out in medication we’re giving the pharmacists $180,000/year. Yeah. And the insurance doesn’t cover all. Like after 2 months, we were on catastrophe coverage. But if I didn’t have the job I have. If I didn’t have insurance I don’t know.
So how have the pharmaceutical companies helped?
Yeah and that’s one information I would like people to know. They will help you. Because some of the drugs are so much. And go to their website. Ask your doctor who makes it? Look it up. They usually have patient help programs. See if you qualify. For us, the first couple months we paid a certain amount of [what] the insurance doesn’t pay. […] The insurance covers after a certain amount, before that they don’t. So, the company helps to cover that gap. So. we send them the proof that we got this at the pharmacy, this is what we paid on it—it’s the 20%—[and] they will send us the 20% later. So you’re kind of out-of-pocket for a little bit, but you get it back.
And have you experienced that with different companies?
Yes, but they won’t tell you.
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