Other tips include simply talking to your doctor about generic alternatives, especially for chronic conditions like hypertension and cholesterol, there are several drugs on the market besides the big-name, heavily-advertised ones, and a lot of the new drugs have not been shown to be any better than the old ones.
If that's not feasible, most brand-name drugs will have a coupon of some sort on their website; if you have
insurance, these will often reduce your copay to nothing, or close to it.
If you don't have
insurance, most of the big-name drug companies will have some sort of assistance program, there's information buried deep within the website, usually. The Bridges to Access program listed above is an example of this, specifically for GlaxoSmithKlein. Also, if you're paying out-of-pocket, pill-splitting will often save you about half the money, IF it is something that can be split, and IF your doctor gives you the go-ahead. As an example, in the last retail pharmacy I worked in, metoprolol ER 25/50/100/200 were the same price per tablet, and several people would get the next higher strength and take half of one. In other cases, the opposite may be true - clindamycin 150 mg at my previous job was significantly less than half the price of the 300 mg, so we often doubled up the 150 mg for the uninsured patients.
Finally, pharmacists are an invaluable resource, and can really go to bat for you with your doctor if need be. Doctors, generally, are out of touch with what prescription drugs cost; they have typically been very surprised when I've spoken with them about prices for drugs a patient has brought in.
