Company converting to HDHP

High deductible, consumer driven plans are best for healthy individuals who don't anticipate a lot of medical costs as they have a lot less expensive premiums. As chronic illness patients, we're the opposite, as we're using our prescription and health plans to their fullest and therefore HDHP's suck with their higher copays and deductibles on pretty much everything.

What can you do if you have no choice but a HDHP?

Often HDHP plans are combined with a healthcare Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or Health Savings Account (HSA), so take advantage of them. These allow you to set aside pre-tax dollars for the copays and deductibles you are certain to pay. You set aside money from your payroll into the account, and get a debit card to use at your doctor's office. As it's pretax, it makes things a little bit cheaper (assuming the average person pays a 15-12 percent tax on his/her federal earnings) and it should further shield that income from state and local taxes as well for further savings. Sometimes, your employer will seed your FSA or HSA with some money to get you started.

Work with your doctor's office when you get the first big deductible expenses on Jan 1st (or whenever the new plan takes effect). Most will offer payment plans, with monthly payments as everyone understands getting hit with thousands of deductibles and copays is tough on even the most financially prudent person's budget.

Ask for less expensive alternatives for prescriptions, and take full advantage of patient copay assistance cards and programs. HDHP's are meant to steer you into using generic medications over brand names. If Pentasa's copay assistance program isn't enough, you could explore generic alternatives and their costs. Balsalazide disodium is the generic medication that's similar to Pentasa/Asacol/Delzicol/Lialda/Apriso and it can considerably more affordable. Sulfasalazine is another generic but it has slightly higher odds of side effects than Basalazide disodium (due to the sulfa byproduct, especially if you have a sulfa allergy). Both of those medications are more complex molecules than Pentasa's mesalamine. Gut bacteria break that more complex molecule into mesalamine and a byproduct. Without the expensive delayed-release, chemical coating and the patents and brandnames that go with them, those generics are considerably more affordable. Mesalamine is delivered to the target area through different means, where it does the same exact thing (acts as an anti-inflammatory).

If you need a colonoscopy, suggest a flexible-sigmoidoscopy instead. Flex-sigs are a lot more affordable, and if you can do one without sedation than you can save the most money.

6MP is available as generic for brand named purinethol. I get that generic.

Azathioprine is the generic of Imuran.

Uceris is an expensive brandnamed med.

Stockpile some extra meds before the change over to the new plan, if you can. Often you can fill a prescription once every 20 days.

From our resources section on rowasa copay assistance

Rowasa

www.rxhope.com/pap/pdf/meda.pdf

https://www.pparx.org/en/prescription_assistance_programs

I've had a HD health policy my whole adult life, when healthy it worked great and then after getting UC it was still generally cheaper premium-wise. But I was self-employed and able to choose my own policy and always had a HSA too.

Have you talked to your company's benefits rep about anything you can do to make the new policy fit you better? Ask about FSA (Flex. Spending Acct). You don't need their permission to set up an HSA (Health Savings Account) and you should do that to make your medical expenses pre-tax purchases. That will save you some money.

Rowasa is always the bugger due to cost. If you can get patient assistance go for that. My income is just a bit too high for me to qualify and I've always used generic mesalamine enemas. In the past year I've ordered these and suppositories from Canada because I knew I would not make my deductible.

Do the math and see if your total yearly RX will be over your deductible. If not then Canada could save you money on some RX, not everything is cheaper there

I wonder if you could find a better insurance policy buying it yourself? If your state has good providers (like Massachusetts) it would be worth investigating. You may qualify for lower cost policy if your income is low. And maybe your company will give you a rebate if you opt out of their insurance.

Lastly maybe look for a job with a company with better benefits. Your current company sounds like it's trying to cheap it out by their choice of plans. You are surely not the only one there unhappy with the changes so if enough people make a stink they may have second thoughts and get a better plan.

Good luck.