What happens if you can't afford your medication?

[Frequency]

I can btw, this is not a begging thread, but I'm taking the money from my savings, and I don't always have money in my savings, which has got me pondering.

If I didn't have savings and my asthma medication ran out, is there a scheme where I can buy now, pay later, or is it a case of risking death or needing A&E?

Are there any other life-saving medications you have to pay for, or is it just asthma? I know my mum gets free prescriptions because she needs thyroid medication, but that doesn't seem as serious or life-threatening as asthma to me.

What's the criteria for a medication being free, and why doesn't it seem to make sense?

I'm on Symbicort. I take a prescribed dose of 1-2 puffs twice a day, depending on how my allergies are playing up, and as needed as a reliever. It wasn't described to me as MART. I've only just heard of MART on this thread. I've been on for 2ish years, I think, and it's been amazing, if anyone is worrying about switching and not having the blue inhaler.

Before this, I had the brown inhalers, then a purple one. When I was still using my blue one most nights, they changed me to the red one. I only need my red one as a reliever a couple of times a week now, sometimes less.

Symbicort is a type of MART therapy, OP

I have often wondered about the free medication criteria but not just in terms of who gets it but what it covers. I have hypothyroidism so have never had to pay for a prescription ever, no matter what it is for. If I had to pay for everything except my thyroid meds, would enough money be saved that other conditions could be exempted in the same way?

@pippapipps That’s not strictly true. Everybody in Ireland is eligible to apply for the Drug Refund Scheme. This means you don’t pay more than €80 per month for prescriptions- you can apply as a family.

I’ve just added up and we’d pay MORE for prescriptions per month for our family if we lived in England.

Also, people who are low income but don’t qualify for a medical card may be eligible for a GP visit card.

I think making medications free for all chronic conditions would save money overall. The charities I linked to have quoted studies from Chrons and Parkinsons that show the NHS would save £20 million a year if medication for those conditions were free.

I realise Symbicort is used in MART now, I googled when people kept mentioning MART, but it's not a phrase I'd heard before, which is why I didn't mention it whenI was explaining why I use my inhaler so much.

In england you would only pay £10 per month per adult, nothing for children

@bruffin that’s not what is being said by posters here who are living in England. They are saying it’s £9.50 per item. Which is nearer to €11 per item NOT per month. The OP is paying £9.50 per month because she only has one item on prescription per month.

I live in england. You can buy a prepaid certificate which covers all of your prescriptions for £32 £or 3 months , or £114 a year or split over 12 months by direct debit. As it is most people are exempt from payment anyway 90% of prescriptions are free

@Pollymollydolly If you pay for the prepaid cert it is around £10 a month. However, research by many chronic illness charities has shown that the prepaid cert isn't being used by many people on low incomes for various reasons, including lack of awareness, uncertainty of cost vs savings, and a reluctance to set up a new direct debit.

This could be, as this thread seems to suggest, because poor people are stupid and are all standing by their kettle grinning maniacally while watching it boil all their money away, or it could be because we are in a cost-of-living crisis and people on low and middle incomes are struggling to meet all their basic costs. Either way, the failure of this system is costing the NHS more in longrun.

So similar to the Drug Refund Scheme - capping the amount. Can you apply as a family or is it per person? I do think the scheme here is unfair to single people as it is €80 whether you are one person or a family.

@Frequency I think unfortunately it can be harder for people on lower incomes to come up with larger sums of money so they can end up paying more. It annoys me that the poorer in society often end up paying more - prepaid electricity for example is more expensive and I think is almost exclusively used by lower income households.

The prepaid certificate is good though but I can see that some people might find it harder to budget for, and of course it doesn’t help people who are only on one prescription item per month.

Yes but if you need more than 1 item per month you can get the certificate which is £11 a month and covers AS MANY PRESCRIPTIONS AS YOU NEED.

So if you had 2-50 scripts in a month that £11 is all you need to pay. OP is saying she pays £9.90 per prescription because she doesn’t have the certificate because she believes it will cost her more. She needs to find £114 a year max for her prescriptions and all under 18s are FREE.

You can pay for the certificate monthly. That’s an option on the website

You cannot get a certificate for a family. Children are always free… so you don’t need one as a family only per paying adult.

It's worth knowing that prepayment certs can be backdated by a month and any prescription charges during that time will be refunded. This is useful for anyone who suddenly has more prescriptions than usual and who wouldn't usually bother with a prepayment cert.

Banks don't really do those massive fees anymore. Even if you dip into an unauthorised overdraft and they allow it, the interest on a tenner is basically pennies. It really just comes down to being responsible and lining up your bill dates.

Health comes first. Skim £2 off your gas and electric, maybe £6 or £7 off the food shop and all other bills collectively, and done. Even if you don't need meds every single month, treat the cost like insurance. You wouldn't complain about paying important insurance just because you didn't use it that month.

If you pick up just one prescription a month, the prepayment certificate pays almost pays for itself. Anything on top of that is a bonus, and the slight extra in the months you do use a premium worth it for that insurance. You already said how dangerous asthma is, so there’s really no excuse not to budget for the extra they know can come.

Or apply for the low income scheme, which has a misleading name and you dont need to have a low income technically.

I'm not sure why posters are continually advising me how to budget for inhalers when the first line of my OP is literally "I can, btw (afford my medication)"?

I also have no clue why posters keep insisting a prepaid cert will save me money when I've repeatedly said I do not get more than one item a month?

I feel like this needless fixation on my specific circumstances is detracting from the debate over whether the current system is working, overall.

To clarify again, I can afford my inhaler. I can order no more than one a month, but I typically order one every 6 weeks. If I ever found I couldn't afford it, I would either borrow one from my dad or not pay for something I usually pay for that I know one of the kids would buy rather than go without, like washing powder or electricity. Should I find I ever need a prepaid cert, I will pay upfront on payday or use savings if I have them, as any issues I have with money are short-term and caused by an unexpected expense.

Overall, if 30% of people are rationing medication or going without entirely, the system is clearly not working as intended. I refuse to believe it's because poor people are too stupid to budget. That's insulting.

Because you’ll save money on a pre pay even at 1 item a month.

It’s there in first paragraph on website and simple maths 12 prescriptions is more than a pre pay.

Plus you may end up getting 13 a year - sometimes you can order a bit earlier or you may need other prescriptions too antibiotics etc.

That 30% figure was nonsense and uou know it.

Perhaps people are like you are thinking prepay is more expensive than 12 individual prescription items?
Pre pay used to be marketed for if you needed multiple items but with cost of prescription if you are only on 1 item a month it’s worth it. It also removes that worry, you know if you have any other prescriptions it’s all covered eg if you get prescribed steroid cream and antibiotics that’s almost £20.

So with the prepay certificate no one ever has to pay more then £11 per month for whatever medication they need. I really struggle to believe that this amount is unaffordable for anyone for a priority need. And in addition no one ever has to pay for kids medicine. And in addition people on ill health benefits get theirs free.

It’s a good deal vs much of the world where medications are much more expensive and people have to pay for everything. No it doesn’t need changing it’s already a good deal.

Quite honestly the amount of prescription medication that is wasted is a scandal so maybe everyone (apart from kids) should have to pay a little bit and that would discourage the epic scale of waste that I have seen with my own eyes of bags of unused medication.

I had to pay £20 last year for disabled student sons 2 items(inhaler& antibiotics) when he was home from uni for big summer break- he had no money left from his grant by then, but he had been sent the wrong form which covers free or low prescriptions/dental/medical etc- the HC2(They had mistakenly sent HC3) we also had to pay a dental bill for £75 (but we had been threatened with extra £75 to pay as costs as considered fraud as 'we' had ticked he had HC2) - i explained it was dentist who had done that when i asked if there was anything to pay at dental surgery- she was used to him having HC2- but we still had the £75 to pay.I agreed with son that he could give me half of it back when his new grant came through.Now thankfully hes got the HC2 back but i think theres still a prescription charge with it.🤔

My months supply is only 28 days, so that would be 13 prescriptions a year. Im over 60 and insulin dependent diabetic so i get mine free. I get 3 x 28 tablets , 100 blood monitoring sticks (25 days worth) , plus 5 insulin pens on a regular basis (probably every two months), plus lancets and 90 needles (use 2 a day) so some months i would have 7 prescriptions!
My husband has 3 lots of tablets a month but for some reason they give him 2 months supply at a time. It was still worth him getting the prepay certificate before he was 60.

@bruffin yes you could easily get 13 monthly prescriptions on it in a year, I always order my hrt in good time to avoid running out. It’s a no brainer to me to do the prepay if you are on regular medication so I can’t understand why op is adamant it’s not for her. She says she has savings to purchase it.

So does the pre-pay cover a person for whatever they get prescribed, or just regular long-term medications?? (like inhalers etc) because if it does (like if the OP needs antibiotics or steroids etc as a one- off) then yes she would be better buying the pre-pay.OMG i feel old, i can remember when i was a kid and my mum or older brother (over 16) had to pay 35pence per item.Then it went to £4.50 i think by time i had grown up.Now the cost is just ridiculous, per item too- it wouldnt be so bad if it was per prescription no matter how many items on.What makes me angry is how come the other ''UNITED KINGDOM'' countries get them free but English have to pay such a huge amount.United my backside. It's a rip off to have us cover cost of the other countries free prescriptions.(i dont mean those entitled by age or benefits ) but i mean how come EVERYONE in those countries get them Free-even if they work?? It should be fair and either ALL the UK pay about £3-4 just to cover costs, or we should ALL receive free.