Posted 11/10/2014 5:47 PM (GMT 0)
Remicade or humira, I'd look at cost to you, convenience, and effectiveness. Humira is likely slightly cheaper. Call your insurance and ask what each medication will cost you out of pocket to verify as every insurance policy is different. Remicade is given by a nurse, who sets an IV in your arm, it takes 2 to 3 hours and is painless, but is often given and billed as a hospital outpatient service. Humira is a subcutaneous (just below the skin) injection you administer yourself after training, and specialty medication pricing may be used. Those self-injections can hurt. Humira is more convenient. Remicade has the best odds of helping patients with uc (60 percent have an improvement in uc symptoms, 30 percent achieve remission), and has been used longer than humira, and humira is about half as effective as remicade for patients with uc. Remicade is more effective.
What dies remicade cost? My insurance is billed $6,600.00 for my remicade treatment (5mgs per kilogram given every 8 weeks). The insurance only allows a maximum of $3,300 to be paid for this procedure. I end up paying $125.00. I use remicade's patient assistance card remistart which pays for all but $50.00. Humira has a card like this as well.