Series reboot: “The Prescription Drug Playbook”

Hey there —

Last year, we set out on a mission: Collect all the best advice about what to do when your drugs cost more than you can afford.

We asked you — our listeners and subscribers — for your experiences. Your responses helped us map a whole landscape of potential options: drug coupons, discount pharmacies, assistance programs, and even free samples.

You also raised hurdles — prior authorizations, drug formularies that change year after year — and told us how you overcame them.

We documented your most successful moves in our series “The Prescription Drug Playbook” — two episodes, four First Aid Kits, and a listener-inspired cost-comparison tool.

One year later, this reporting is still as relevant as ever. A recent poll shows about four in ten adults have not taken their medications as prescribed in the last year because of cost. And despite industry promises, prior authorization hurdles for medications are still a huge burden.

So we’re bringing the series back, condensed into one episode.

We know the options we review in this series are only patches, and that none of them will necessarily pan out for you and your specific situation. But they’re worth knowing in case they can help — and reviewing.

We hope you’ll tune in, and share with anyone you think might relate to it or benefit from it.

And if you check it out, and realize you’ve tried something we didn’t cover that you think people should know about, let us know!

Bonus: The Supreme Court decision on the generic drug case

Last week, the Supreme Court issued their ruling in Hikma v. Amarin, the generic versus brand-name drugmaker case that experts told us could slow our access to cheaper generic drugs.

In a unanimous decision (!) the Court sided with Hikma, the generic drug maker.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the opinion. Full text here for anyone who’s looking for some light beach reading.

(Kidding — but if anyone’s got any summer reading we should know about, we’re all ears.)

— Claire