After talking to people today I realized that some of the things I learned about getting financial assistance for medication in America are not common knowledge. So, Here's a little helpful info that has made all the difference in our lives, especially during covid--

For your prescriptions, find the manufacturer's name and google "[manufacturers name] coupons" to find coupon cards. For example, one coupon took my husband's lantus from $900 a month to $99 with or w/o insurance. My inhaler went from $60 w/ins to $0.

Another helpful search phrase is "[name] financial assitance" or "[man. name] care program". Lilly cares is the program for people who can't afford eli lilly products. They have both an online and a phone number to call to enroll. These are free programs, though you have to apply

For medical equipment like insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors, etc, search "[product name] free trial". That's part of the reason we were able to finally get a pump for much less than the $3800 price tag. We did the "free trial" which left us only paying a little over...

$500 out of pocket for some of the hardware and the second month's supplies with my insurance at the end of the year. If you're not working and can enroll in the pump's support program AND the free trial, you'll get all that for free. My husband is still working so we didn't

qualify for the free program but just applying for the income based assistance made a huge difference for us

I hope that helps. Enrolling in the programs can take some time (some take a couple minutes) but if you qualify it can make all the difference. If you're working, it's a

little harder to qualify. But for those people who are not working and are without insurance, the programs I've found for a lot of these companies are very generous.

Also, y'all. If you're medical equipment fails-- even if it was time to change it in a few hours-- call and report the failure. A lot of companies will replace them for free. If you have a 72hour pod that fails at hour 68 or an inhaler that stops at 100/120 pumps it doesn't

Matter. You paid for a full dose/ hours/ days/ units. Report those failures and get replacements. The company takes that loss, not you.