Should You Use Your Insurance or Prescription Discount Card?

If you go to the pharmacy to pick up your prescription every few weeks, it may be the recurring prescription you pay for each month as a maintenance medication. It may happen that you came down with the irritating sinus/cough/cold infection which you get once a year and need to pick up some congestion and antibiotics relief medications.

In this scenario, all you need to do is ask these two questions yourself:

•      First, should I use my insurance and ensure the copay counts towards my health plan?
•      Do I want to use the discount card on medications and not pay the price fully?

Compare the costs in advance

Before dropping the prescription off at the pharmacy, hop on your computer or phone and go to the discount card website. The discount program is accepted at most major pharmacies. Rx discount card helps you get the medications at the lowest cost at your nearest pharmacies. The drug cost of your drug will likely be much cheaper when you use a discount coupon.

How should you use the discount coupon?

If you decide to go the route where you can use a free prescription drug discount card, you must keep in mind the amount you will not be applied towards the medical deductible or out-of-pocket maximum. Therefore, you are likely to reach out to the health insurance company and see if you can submit the receipts for prescription discount card purchases.

Should you make it count towards your deductible?

It depends on what your year looks like; it may benefit you to pay the pharmacy copay and file the pharmacy claim through your insurance. If you take multiple medications consistently or are planning to have any medical scans, surgeries, or procedures throughout the year, the more copays you spend at the pharmacy, the sooner you will meet your minimum requirements to spend towards the deductible or out-of-pocket maximum.

Will the Insurance Company Reimburse for the Rx Prescription Discount Card?

When you use a prescription discount card to save on your prescriptions, you choose not to use insurance. Therefore, it is considered an out-of-network, cash purchase, out-of-pocket while using the insurance company. However, you might be eligible to be reimbursed if you are willing to do a little paperwork.

Using an Rx discount card can be helpful to afford medication if you have a high deductible plan, if your insurance does not cover a medication, or if the price is lower than your copay for the treatment. Also, it is crucial to note that this process is different from ‘split billing,’ which means using two different insurance plans, as prescription discount cards are not the insurance.

                         

How to get reimbursed for a prescription?

Whether an insurance company reimburses you for a prescription will depend on their policies. Most health insurance plans will reimburse you for a prescription if you:

 ·   Got billed incorrectly by the pharmacy

 ·    Purchased medication outside the US

  ·   Didn’t have an insurance card

 ·    Waited for a drug approval

 ·   Paid for a compound prescription

 

 ·   Used a non-participating pharmacy

You may also let your insurance company know about the price with the prescription discount card company about how cheaper it was compared to the insurance cost. You may also be eligible for reimbursement if you receive prescription benefits through Medicaid or Medicare.

Many insurance companies need you to send requests for reimbursement within a specific time after you fill up your prescription.

There is a possibility that insurance policies vary, and your results may differ depending on the agent who will process your insurance claim. In addition, there’s a possibility that your insurance may decline to reimburse you. It may also happen that the company may apply your payment to your deductible; in this case, contact them for enhanced information or repay you.

It may happen that you do not get your money back; you can rest easy knowing you spent less with the best prescription discount card than you would have out-of-pocket.