Hi all,
I'm a diabetes educator. I started someone on a pump today. She has to pay for her insulin, then get reimbursed. Two vials of Humalog insulin cost her $350.00. I was shocked! What do you pay for:
Humalog vial
Novolog vial
Humalog disposable pens
Novolog Flexpen
Vial of Lantus
Solostar Lantus
Vial of Levemir
Levemir Flexpen
Please advise.
Thank you!!!
EnJOY!
Joy
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I paid $150 for a bottle of Humalog in NYC a couple of years ago.
Wow! Thank you Marie. Sorry, I should have replied to you, not me. 
2 bottles of levimere at 250.00 per bottle, just lost my health insurance!! the challenge begins for me…
It astounds me that insulin costs > cocaine. I had to buy a bottle of Novolin N out of pocket last weekend and it was $68. I was like “isn’t there a price w/ BCBS?” “yeah, if you have an RX” so I could spend $150 of Blue Cross’s $$$ to go to a doc and get a prescription or just suck it up. I was sort of out of my head, as I’d just run 10 miles and my pump blew up @ the end of it so I was not exactly thinking “how much is out of pocket” and it was a holiday weekend and all that too but I was not pleased about the cost of what, the last time I bought it, was like $20/ vial.
Well, I would say to just start calling up everyone to get prices…
-Walgreens ( both with their savers plan that cost $20 yr to join and OTC w/o it )
-Wal Mart
-Canada mail order… HOCKS for strips, CanadaDrugs.Com, etc.
-If you make at or below Poverty Level Income, ck with your State, County and Township
-And even if you don’t, ck with them anyway… You are probably Un Insurable for Individual Ins. and may qualify for some Local County plan .
I was Uninsured for my 1st 10 yrs ( got T1 when age 45) and always thought Why can’t I get Into Medicare? It’s a Chronic Disease?
I still think, anyone Diagnosed with T1 ought to Automatically qualify for Medicare
and I remind my Congressman and Senator every yr of this…
in Ga at the target chain it is 100 bucks for 1 vial of humalog and the novalog is 90 bucks. I have a friend with no insurance and she went throuh the manafacter to get assitance and she gets it for next to nothing through lily
I am amazed that folks are paying two to three times what I regard as “full price” for, say, a vial of humalog. I mean, I do know that some pharmacies jack up the price specifically to those who don’t have insurance… but jacking it up to two or three times “full list price” would be like going to a Hyundai dealership and having to pay $85,000 for a compact car just because they don’t like the way you look, but everybody else pays $12,000.
Within 3 miles of my house there are two “small mom and pop” pharmacies and a big-name chain CVS store. For a vial of humalog:
Mom and pop #1: $119 a vial
Mom and pop #2: $119 a vial
CVS: $120 a vial
And note that I regard $120 a vial as a total rip-off too :-). When I was a kid 30+ years ago, a vial of Lilly Iletin R was $6. (That was U-100. The U-40 stuff was cheaper.)
My copay for a vial of Novolog is $75 (up from $10 with my previous insurer). No idea what I would pay out of pocket.
Well I feel lucky. My novolog for 3 vials is 37.50. I had no idea these insulin’s were so expensive!
Out of pocket a vial of Humalog costs me $30, but RiteAid includes to the pre-insurance cost on the receipt they print out and yeah, $350 sounds about right – I don’t have the slip in front of me but I sent it in to my FSA recently to get reimbursed for the OOP cost and I seem to recall it was in that neighborhood. Test strips are outrageously expensive too. Of course, back when I was paying the TOTAL cost out of pocket (Oct 2008 - June 2009), it was $248.00. One wonders where the additional $100 crept into the mix…
With UHC as my insurer - I used to pay $50 for a 5 pack of NOVOLOG flex pens,
$50 for a 5 pack of LANUS solostar… Now that I am pumping Humalog - I get two vials (2000u) for $10!!!
I have NO idea what is going to happen because my company is changing to BCBSFL with an HSA plan!? 
It’s about $170 per vial of Novolog. Thankfully I have super insurance and my copay is $20/3 vials. I will be changing insurance carriers in October and expect this to go up quite a bit (triple or more…)
I have BCBS of MA through my school, and I pay $35 for all my relevant co-pays (200 OneTouch strips [fighting to get a PA for 300], 5 Humalog pens, or 5 Lantus SoloStar pens). My folks keep me on their insurance (HealthNet of CA) which is also $35/copay but covers only Aviva strips without a PA.
Thank you. What is a PA?
Physician’s Assistant.
Got it. Thanks. And thank you to all who have been responding. What a great community!
EnJOY!
Joy
I dont know if its called the same thing in America, But i buy Novorapid for $5.00 (a pack of 5 pen vials, which go a long way) which is around 5.50 american dollars. Which is significantly different, poor person
Prior Authorization, not Physician’s Assistant.
That makes more sense here. Thanks again!
EnJOY!
Joy