[Via – Lifehacker]
Whether you have good health insurance or none at all, the costs of medications can be astronomical. Here’s a tip for stretching your dollars at the pharmacy.
First of all, to take advantage of this great tip, the first thing you need to do is run the idea past your doctor. Here’s how it works: With some medications, the higher the dose, the less you’ll pay per milligram to have your prescription filled. In some cases, you might be able to get your medicine at double the dose you normally take, then cut it in half with a pill-splitter.
Your doctor or pharmacist can tell you if the meds you take can be safely split, because some can’t (the pill pictured above obviously wouldn’t work so well, for example). If so, ask your doctor to write you a prescription for a higher strength pill and chop them in half yourself. Wisebread blogger Paul Michael runs the numbers on how much money you can potentially save with this method.
I take a medication that can be safely cut in half and therefore it was the perfect option for me… A medication with a $50 monthly co-pay becomes a $25 co-pay. That adds up to a healthy $300 per year savings. If I’m on this for the rest of my life (I sure hope not) it would save me thousands and thousands of dollars. But even if it’s just for another 3-4 years, that’s still a savings of at least $1200 on what is basically the same medication