Kidney
Kidney medications and costs
April 24, 2022
in Kidney
Good news for kidney transplant patients - Legislation change (see below) - Medicare, under Plan B, is setting up a program to cover immunosuppressive meds for life as of 2023 if you meet the criteria. This is especially good news as you retire.
They are supposed to be setting up an enrollment program in the fall.
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Transplant Patient
What do immunosuppression medications cost without coverage? I'm in Canada so all my medications are paid for.
Very expensive. About 4 - 500$ a month. Since I am on Medicare and I have a kidney xplant, I get help with my medication costs. It used to be if you were too young to be on Medicare, you only got three years' worth of Medicare-covered drug costs post xplant. However, Congress is now going to make drug coverage permanent. If I did not have assistance, I would be buying my immunosuppressive drugs in Canada or Mexico. Same drugs, 1/4th the cost. Big Pharma bleeds Americans dry. Pure greed.
Transplant Patient
@A_Ray thats insane! If I lived in the US I don’t know how I’d be able to do it! I’ve also found that just generally across the board Canadians seem to be on less medication than Americans, which is odd considering our survival rates aren’t any worse.
In the US, a board at your insurance company may review your case and play "god" if it costs too much. Even though your doctor will say this is a life and death medication, the insurance will make a decision to cover you or not because the drugs are expensive. The insurance may also assign a "caseworker" to check up if you are getting better or not and that can go against you, especially if the medications change. It's not a courtesy call, even though they make is sound that way, just the insurance snooping up on you because they can't get your medical records. At the first of the year, insurance company will review you and make changes on what to cover, and you are starting over again. They can drop you whenever they want to.