Thursday, July 02, 2009

Oh? Canada, eh?

Since I've hit the Aetna Medicare donut hole already, which means I pay ALL the costs of my brand-name drugs, I've made my yearly trek to Canada, by Internet.

Aetna charges $316.49 for 90 Celebrex 200 mg capsules.
Magicpharma.com charges $36 plus $5 mailing costs ($41 total) for 90 Celebroxine capsules. Celebroxine is the generic drug for Celebrex, but it's not available in the United States.
That's a savings of $275.49 for 90 days.

Even before I hit the donut hole, my co-pay through Aetna is $80, almost twice what the generic for Celebrex cost.

Once I'm in the donut hole, Aetna charges $271.55 for 90 Uroxatral 10 mg capsules.
Before I hit the donut hole, my Aetna co-pay is $40 for 90 Uroxatral 10 mg capsules.
Magicpharma.com charges $61 plus $5 mailing costs ($66 total) for 90 Afluzosine 10 mg capsules. Afluzozine is generic for Uroxatral, but the generic is not available in the United States.
It's cheaper to get Uroxatral from Aetna as long as I'm not in the donut hole.
Once I hit the donut hole, I save $205.55 for 90 days.

So, once I hit the donut hole, I save $481.04 every 3 months by getting both the Celebrex and Uroxatral generics through Canada, even if I order them separately and pay $5 mailing costs for each.

All of this is done online. You need your doctor's prescription, which you can scan with your computer and then attach it to the order form that you also get online. Give your credit card number and save. Or you can write a check and mail it with the forms, if you prefer.

Questions? Email me or call me at (330) 388-4466.

For those who don't understand the donut hole: Once you hit a specified amount -- $2,700 this year -- for the actual cost of the prescriptions (your co-pay plus Aetna's payments) -- you're in the donut hole. Then it switches to your actual out-of-pocket (the totals of your co-pays, but not the actual cost of the drugs) and you stay in the donut hole to buy brand-name drugs till you spend $6,153.75 of your own money (your co-pay for generics remains the same in or out of the donut hole). That guarantees that Aetna isn't paying any more for my Uroxatral or Celebrex for the remainder of the year. And it's barely July. Last year, I didn't hit the donut hole till September. Maybe that's because the pharmaceutical lobbyists helped write the law that set up the donut hole.

Click on the headline to go to Magicpharma.com
If you want to try another non-USA online pharmacy, go to CanadaDrugPharmacy.com

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