Maybe There's a Coupon?

Yeah, so, I had a little bit of a bad day. As you might recall from my post a few months ago, I had a somewhat successful visit to my endocrinologist a couple of months ago, but hadn't yet gone to fill my prescriptions. Looking at my dwindling supply in the fridge the other day, I figured it was time, because that supply was not going to last me until August when I start working. I filled them last week. I went to the pharmacist with about 6 prescriptions, and she came back with 2 that were covered by my insurance out of those: the Lantus and my test strips. When I read the copay, I looked at the Lantus and looked at the One Touch strips. "How much is the copay on each of those?" I asked. "The Lantus is $9. The strips are $70."
I sighed. The strips were obscene. So, I opted out of those (I can get them for cheap using a cheap meter on amazon) and bought the Lantus, which I couldn't believe was so cheap. Mind you - this was the first time I'd filled an actual prescription covered by insurance in almost 2.5 years. I was ecstatic, but a little confused. My insurance benefits didn't look like they covered that much of my insulin, but I didn't question it.
My short acting insulin (Humalog) hadn't been filled though. "It's not covered by your insurance. They prefer Novolog," the pharmacist said.
I called my doctor the next day to ask him to call in a Novolog prescription instead. I liked the Novolog pens a little better anyways. For once, I actually felt really... hopeful? I had not expected my insurance to make my insulin so affordable!

So imagine me walking into the pharmacy today, expecting the same great copay on insurance. I'm so naive! I walked up to the drop-off counter and waited for someone to notice me. A man looked up from giggling with some girl that looked like a student and asked if he could help me. I was still wearing my Mercer "student physical therapist" name tag. I know this pharmacy used a lot of Mercer pharmD students.
"Is there any way I can check to see if my doctor called a prescription in?" He looked at my name tag, then asked my name and DOB. And then that's where the frustration began. "Yeah, you've got a few..."
"Is there one for Novolog?"
He looked at the screen. "Yeah. Ooooh, but ouch," be sucked his breath in. "Wow, but it's expensive! Are you sure you want that?" He looked at the student and they looked at me and smirked a little, giggling.
"Umm. How much?" I asked, blinking, somewhat abashed. He told me the number. I swallowed hard. Was that funny? Was this a joke? I needed it to live. It's not like affording it was even an option.

It was a lot more than $9, or some test strips I didn't want to pay for.
"But... aren't they covered by my insurance?" I asked. "Yeah, well, maybe it's not preferred by them."
"It is. They said they preferred it over Humalog. Why is it so much more than the Lantus?"

"Oh, well, that was paired with a coupon that week. You just got lucky I guess. Normally that would have been... wow, $400 for you! Could be that your insurance just isn't that great."

"Oh." I said, my spirits falling. "Well, what about this prescription savings card?"
He looked at it. "Yeah, um, that's just a generic card."
"Check. Please. I don't really know how this works or what else I can do."

He typed it into the computer. "Yeah, it'd be a lot more than even with the insurance. Maybe there's a coupon online?"
Someone else walked up behind me to fill a prescription. I frantically pulled up my phone and searched for any coupon. I downloaded one and got back in line after the other person had finished.

"This one is just like the other card you handed me. You didn't get a Novolog coupon?"

"They don't have any. Um. Are the vials any cheaper?" I asked.
He typed some more into the computer.
"So what program are you in at Mercer?"

I looked at him, then looked down at my name tag with the big "student physical therapist" across it.
"Physical Therapy."
"Oh, cool. What year?"
"I'm finishing up in May."
"Wow, congratulations!"
I looked at him, with what I'm sure was exhaustion and frustration emanating from my face.

"So. Vials. They're $70 per vial."

"Per vial?" That's more than they would cost individually in the 5-pack. Why?"

"I don't know."

"Well didn't Novo Nordisk just partner with some pharmacies for cheaper insulin? What about that program for $25 insulin at CVS?"
"That's probably just coupons too."

"There are no coupons. It's not. Isn't there something?"
"Well, no, probably not. So, do you want me to go ahead and fill this?"

I looked at him, swallowing back what were the familiar hot tears of years of frustration, underinsurance, exasperation, exhaustion, sadness. God, I didn't want to be diabetic anymore. I never asked for this.
"Um, no. No. I'll check back later," I said, turning away, holding back the tears again. The same old tears I'd cried for years, remembering these hard years, grateful at least that they were almost over.
I went to my car, let some tears fall down my face, looked up some patient assistant programs.
And you know what sucks about this all? I looked at the patient care assistant programs. They don't help you pay for your insulin unless you don't have insurance... which I was forced to get. Sighing, I put my phone away and drove home, giving myself a pep talk.
It was going to be okay. God had provided for me for years, through all of this hardship. Somehow, despite all of this difficulty, I had had insulin, whether through luck, the generosity of others, the foresight of doctors... somehow, I had had enough through all these years. And I'm frustrated, especially by the insensitiveness of the tech at Kroger today, but I'm thankful that I'd had enough. Here's hoping the blessed end to this struggle finally comes soon. It can't come soon enough,