How can you afford costly treatments?

How in the world can anyone who is not wealthy afford these crazy priced treatments of Ritux? I was told I may need 4 rounds of Ritux within a month at a price of $1,500 per round. This is my out of pocket after my insurance covers their side. What has America become? It's so wrong and insane to be charging such a price. How do most of you afford your treatments? Is there any assistance out there for people who don't abuse the system and work extremely hard for every dollar they make?

There are some programs around that can assist with the cost. Your Hemo may be of some help. I have pretty good insurance, after meeting a deductible I pay 20% till I meet "out of pocket maximum" for the year. My max is $4500. Paid that in December last year and again in January this year. I use a health savings account to pay for this, but it still hurts knowing it comes out of my pay check back month.

For a long time after I was diagnosed, I only used Prednisone because it was so cheap. I had two kids in college and one getting married, so I couldn't afford any huge co-pays.

jahel318 wrote: What has America become?

Before Obamacare (2012) my health insurance premium was $222 a month. Next year my premium is $832 a month. The coverage is slightly greater. I can now become a drug addict and get treatment for that. The max out of pocket has gone up. It is about 40% higher now.

IMHO, Obamacare has destroyed the medical insurance industry in America.

I don't know if politics should enter into things on this site - but just wait until medicare is taken out of the picture, and not by Obama either, and see what happens.

Hal9000 your insurance is cheap compared to my friend who will be paying 1400 a month come January 1.

God bless our NHS (while we still have it ) over 60s get free meds. Otherwise it is £8.60 per prescription item. So if you were prescribed say "5mg Pred a day and 500mg mycophenolate twice a day for 6 months" that would count as 2 items costing £17.20 in total. Any treatments given within a hospital setting i.e. Ritiximab are also free

Being in Canada, my drug coverage is different from the US. We have private health care, but my ITP drugs were all covered by Medicare. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to afford them. I did have to pay for my Prednisone, but the IVIG and Rituxan were all paid for by the government.

Lucky UK and Canadians! Our health care system in the USA is very complicated. Before Obamacare, I couldn't get insurance because of my "pre-existing condition" ITP. That has changed and people cannot be denied, so that has been great for me. But back when I had no insurance, I found out there were drug programs that help people get their expensive medications.

In 2010 I got Rituxin for free from the pharmacutical company- Genentech (thank you Sandi) I believe the program was for people who make under $75,000. year. So the drug was free but still the cost for the infusions was over $3000. I made payments for part of that, then the medical group offered to write off the balance. My doctor's billing office told me about the program and helped me get signed up.
Nplate is a weekly injection and is super-expensive. I couldn't dream of getting it except for the drug company, Amgen has a program that helps pay my out of pocket costs. Promacta was made by GlaxoSmithKline and I got free Promacta from 2011-2013. It has been sold to another company so don't know if you can still get free Promacta. But if you are lower income, it really helps to find out about these programs. My hemo's office has a dept called "financial counseling", they have been a huge help. good luck!

Don't get me wrong, our health care system isn't the best! We do have issues. If my hema doc hadn't been able to get me approved for the Rituxan, I couldn't have afforded it.

Posey - it is Genentech (Rituxan).

I'm currently on eltrombopag (Promacta) and know about the ridiculous cost of drugs all too well. For a month supply of 25 mg pills, it cost me $500 with my health insurance (deductible met).

Thankfully, my hematologist mentioned a copay assistance program ( www.copay.novartisoncology.com/ ) with Novartis, the company that produces Promacta. I qualified since I had commercial insurance and agreed to their terms. I believe I would have paid $750-$1000 for a month supply of 75 mg pills. Instead, I paid $25, and will supposedly pay nothing for subsequent bottles until I hit $15,000 worth of covered prescriptions.