$6.05 per asacol HD pill

My prescription is ready and the recording said "your insurance saved you $1,064.00." My payment is $25.00, which would mean it cost $1,089.00 for 180 pills.

That would be $6.05 per pill!! Does anyone find this outrageous??????

That's way too much. It's sad that Asacol didn't get a generic version when it was supposed to. I've ordered generic from Canada and it's a good option if you can't afford the name brand.

I have thought about that a lot and no one would. People like inexpensive and I bet the insurance companies wouldn't pay for the HD version if there was a generic. Everyone would use the generic. We really got gipped on that one. What a crock of crap.

Arizonahiker, yeah it's crazy for sure. You had an interesting thought on what do my meds cost me on a daily basis (if I paid out of pocket for each) I ran the numbers on myself and it is eye opening.

Cost Per day (if paid out of pocket)
$15.71 Rowasa ($439.99 for 28 day supply, dose of 1 per night) generic
$06.18 6mp ($370.98 for 60 day supply, dose of 75mgs a day) generic
$32.73 Lialda ($981.99 for 30 day supply, dose of 4 pills day) brandname
$53.29 Remicade ($3,197.33 for 60 days, dose of 5mgs per kg) brandname
-------------------
$107.92 per day for my meds. Make that per year and it comes to $39,390.35. But ouch, I don't make a whole lot more than that a year. If I got laid off or fired or something then I will seriously mop floors just for the healthcare coverage I think.

I recently discontinued Lialda, and did not figure that in the above.

This reminds me of a recent article on the HufingtonPost: How Your Health Insurance Company Can Still Screw You, Despite Obamacare. This section in particular:

Designing benefits to make the sickest patients pay more for drugs

Advocates for patients with serious medical conditions have been incensed by the practice of "tiered" drug lists, which have become a popular way for insurers to limit their expenses. Under this mechanism, the amount patients pay at the pharmacy is generally lower for cheap generic medicines and "preferred" brand-name drugs, higher for other brand-name drugs and higher still for the most expensive specialty medications.

High cost-sharing and top-tier status for drugs that treat ailments like HIV and multiple sclerosis are common in insurance policies bought via the Obamacare exchanges, the consulting firm Avalere Health reported last month. That looks an awful lot like insurers discriminating against sick people...

It's frightening to look at some private healthcare policies and see Tier II and Tier III drugs being a shared cost percentage, with only generic Tier I's being a flat copay of like $10. For example, insurance pays 50% of cost and insured the other for Tier II's and III's. Fortunately, most policies I've seen cap the out-of-pocket cost of the insured to $250 per prescription per refill and cap the maximum out-of-pocket expense of that to $5,000 a year. However, I am sure that could change as policies change in the near future. Not good if there are no generics available, as with asacol hd in the usa.

Asacol HD was created to compete with Apriso and Lialda (once-daily dosing).

Fruitgirl, no, asacol hd is taken up to 3 times a day. Did you mean Delzicol (I have no idea there)?

My insurance dropped Asacol HD from their formulary, and I switched to Lialda, and I am doing the same or better than I was before with Asacol. Lialda is also significantly cheaper than Asacol HD, and I don't even want to give Warner-Chilcott (makers of Asacol who pulled an underhanded stunt to regain patent protection for another 20 years) any of my business.

Not to mention the cost of any vitamins/supplements.... My probiotics are a dollar a pill...and metamucil runs me about another dollar a day.

07vNH said...
For those members in the US, I'll share what I do to get more reasonable prescription costs.

First, I try to get an understanding of what all of the options would be for getting a mesalamine drug. So I understand what the dosing would be across Asacol, Lialda, Pentasa, etc.

First, I go to goodrx.com and find out how much prescriptions would cost locally. For instance today's prices:

Prices for 60 tablets of Lialda 1.2g (brand): $433.06 ($7.22 each or $0.0060 per mg)
Prices for 180 tablets of Asacol HD 800mg (brand) $946.07 ($5.26 each or $0.0066 per mg)

Then I go to some online pharmacies:

canadadrugsonline.com:

Mesalamine
Generic 1200 mg 100 $120.00 ($1.20 each or $.0010 per mg)

Lialda
Shire 1200 mg 120 $325.00 ($2.70 each or $0.0022 per mg)

alldaychemist:
Asacol - 400 mg 60 Tablet/s US$ 28.10 ($0.47 each or $0.0012 per mg)

Mesacol - 800mg 60 Tablet/s US$ 34.29 ($0.57 each or $0.0007 per mg)

If I were doing this "for real", I might shop more. But that gives you an idea that people in the United States will pay six times what people in the rest of the world pay, so it would be worth it for your doctor to fax the prescription to a pharmacy that's outside the country. In the mean time, while you wait for the package in the mail, use the free samples that the corrupt pharmaceutical companies deliver to your doctor.

A golden post.

My insurance doesnt cover the cost until I meet my almost $2000 deductible, then I have to pay $150 for the 90 day supply. It hurts when january rolls around and I need to shell out about $2000 to get my first round of meds, i wish it was illegal to charge these kinds of prices to consumers who need these medications, if i didn't have any insurance it would be about $1600 a month like you mentioned, thats more than a mortgage for a lot of people

The 'special' brandname mesalmine pills for once a day dosing is a total scam. A clinical trial at a University for once a day with a generic mesalmine pill(read asacol) was done several years before the introduction of the "new" once a day products. It was repeated again in 2010 :

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20064514

The makers of Lialda, MMX and Apriso just did FDA approved trials and got their pills labeled for once a day dosing. You can use any mesalmine pill and once a day with the same effectiveness.

Warner Chilcot is currently stopping the production of generic asacol with every legal trick they can muster.
www.bendbulletin.com/news/1372219-151/blocking-generics

IMHO all these pills are the same. The unpredictable nature or the disease and the fact that no drug will prevent flares forever leaves you the perfect victim for rebranding scams. Might be a rare person that does better with one drug but most doctors don't believe it and just switch you to shut you up or worse because they are being paid for your medical records by a drug company.

By the way my cost without insurance for my generic colazal is $85 one month then $350 the next. The insurance company claims to pay $300 or more every month. How is this even possible? Did they run a sale at all three generic distributors the same month?

Why is generic rowasa $13+ a bottle? Mesalamine is not a expensive chemical. Is that bottle worth $12.99? Maybe it's the wipes?

chewbecca99 said...
I found a coupon on the Asacol HD website that may help you. It lowered my RX to $198 (still high but a least better). I hope being off the Asacol for a while doesnt mean that it wont work anymore. [img]/community/emoticons/smhair.gif[/img]

Warner Chilcott should hire you. Or maybe they already have. You're even newer on this forum than I am, and that's saying something!

So anyone interested in Asacol HD, just know that you will be back to overpaying for a repackaged old drug after a few months...the coupon expires in December. Generic Lialda from a pharmacy outside the US would be less expensive in the long run.