Font Size:
You may contribute to your parents’ expenses, including their medical expenses. Here are some ideas to decrease health care spending.
The Medication Makeover
The majority of your out-of-pocket health care spending may be dollars that pay for medication. Here are some tips that can help you reduce your spending with a Medication Makeover. Look at the big medication picture with your doctor. While your doctors may have added medication over the years, when was the last they asked, "What medications can we safely eliminate?"
More questions that you can ask either your doctor or your pharmacist can also reduce your spending:
1 "Is there one medication that can do the work of two or three?"
2 "Is there a generic medication or an over-the-counter option that could do the job of my brand-name drug?"
3 "Do any of my medications fight each other?"
4 "Are there lifestyle changes that could reduce my medication use?"
Embrace lifestyle changes. Small changes like a ten-minute walk can have big results. Some patients with sleep apnea, for example, find that even a 10% weight loss reduces symptoms. Other lifestyle choices, like contributing to your community or making a habit of expressing gratitude can also improve your health and reduce your medication bills.
Rethink generics
Do your aging parents resist generic medication because they think brand-named drugs work better? In this new economic reality, it may be time to think again. Your beliefs about the power of your medication influence the response you get from them. The way the mind contributes to the body's response to medication is called the placebo effect. When doctors study new drugs, one group of patients gets the study drug with the active ingredient, and another group gets a sugar pill or placebo. Up to 20% of the people taking the sugar pill get the same measurable response as the patients who get the active ingredient. It's the belief in the sugar pill that offers the result.
How does this work? The mind-body connection is an area of active research that may represent the most promising frontiers in medicine. While the placebo affect may sound woo-woo, it most likely works by a similar mechanism that causes your heart to race in response to fear or your face to turn red when you're embarrassed. The placebo response predicts that if your parents believe that brand named drugs work better than generics, they will be proven correct. If they believe that generics work as well as brand-named drugs, they, too, will be proven correct.
How do you motivate your parents to take a second look at generics? It's usually not with fact sheets from the FDA that speak to the logical left brain; it's with stories that are the language of the integrative right brain. Ask the pharmacist to tell stories about satisfied customers who use generics. Ask the doctor if other patients who use generics might be willing to talk with your parents about their experience with generics. The left brain that balances the checkbook dollars may allow your parents to see that generics make sense.
About Dr. Vicki
Vicki Rackner, MD is a board-certified surgeon and clinical faculty member at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She left the operating room to be on the cutting edge of healthcare consumerism. She is now a full-time patient advocate, helping people get the health care they want, need and deserve. Dr. Vicki is an author, speaker and consultant.
Next time your parents visit the doctor, suggest they bring in a complete list of all medication, including both prescription medication and over-the-counter formulations. Then go through the list item by item. Patients can slash medication bills by 20% on average by asking one simple question: "What does this medication treat and do I still need it?"
Printer-friendly version