Mailin' my meds to me

cheldear · #10 (**permalink**) 17th August 2010, 10:14 PM

Yeah. I was hoping not to get into the generic issues.

I have had this disease for over 22 years, so I have to take these meds.

My aunt and I spent two hours poring over the computers at the farmacia regarding my meds and getting lists of all the available generics for each of my medications, and everything that sounded like my medications. I spent hours and hours researching every last one of them.

The one that had generics were non-FDA approved generics; unfortunately, the one FDA approved generic is not available in Mexico.

Problem is, you have to mess with the dosaging when dealing with non-FDA approved generics from other countries.

Because these medications are life-critical for me, I can't do that.

I also can't take meds that are equivalent. After 22 years, I have been on every medication available for my condition and am now on the last available. In fact, we run a thin line on what I take now.

I am actually titrating off of one medication as we speak, and I am hoping to titrate off of one more so that I am down to just a few.

So, as it stands, only one of the meds has any equivalents outside the US in generic, and the dosaging would take too long in trial to determine the changes required. If the dosaging were not directly correlated, it could cause major life-threatening issues.

The others are all marka with no available generics, excepting one, and the generic is not available in Mexico. There is no equivalent non-FDA generic available in Mexico, that might be available in Europe or whatever that has made it's way down to Mexico.

As for the flight thingy, that's exactly what the point of all of this was.

My goal was to try to avoid an issue I am having with my mail in pharmacy; they won't ship to Mexico. And Aetna won't let me fill three month's worth of prescriptions at the walgreens or whatever unless it's a "travel" thing. They let me do it once, but now that I am doing it every three months, they want me to do it through mail in pharmacy.

Mail in pharmacy takes two weeks from the time they get the prescription until you get the actual prescriptions to your doorstep. I can't come home for two weeks every three months. That's why I was asking if my mom could mail my prescriptions to me. I was planning on coming home for a day or two every three months, seeing my doctor, and mailing in the scripts, and hoping that my mom could mail my prescriptions to me when they came to her house.

My copays for three months worth of medications in the states is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for them in Mexico specifically because I can get the generics in the States; in Mexico, I can only get the brand names of the two that are genericized, and the others are patented with no generics available.

So, that's where this question came from.

So, re-diagnosing is not an option. Going home for two weeks every three months is not an option because I work.

I will call Aetna and find out how much they reimburse me for medications, if at all, in Mexico.

Currently, the way that they work for international care is as follows:

1. No reimbursement for routine care.
2. Emergent care: I pay out of pocket for all costs. I submit all receipts, and they reimburse 60% of the costs after I fulfill my deductible.