What do you do if you go on vacation (far away enough that you take a plane) and you leave your prescription meds home by accident?

You should be able to look up a pharmacy where you are vacationing and call them, tell them you left your meds at home and are on vacation, and they should be able to call your local pharmacy (you may have to provide them with contact info) and be able to get a prescription for you to pick up. Not sure how the whole cash thing will work though.

You call your local pharmacy and have them transfer the prescription to one that’s located at your destination. Most insurance will make exceptions to their refill policy in circumstances like this. I had the exact scenario you describe a few years back, and everything worked out all right.

@IchtheosaurusRex, that’s BEFORE you go. What if it happens after you get there? And it is NOT a question where it’s a NEW prescription you have to fill. It’s a situation where you just refilled your pills where you live. You just forgot to take them.

You can ALS call your doc and he can phone in the scrip to any pharmacy. The payment thing is on you but most insurance companies will make exceptions but not allow a third refill until a third refill is due.

As usual, a sensible and knowledgeable answer from the KingFish(*). It’s so discouraging to open an interesting question and see that he has gotten there first, because i know that there’ll be nothing useful left for me to say.

(*) could’t work “God” into the nickname—sorry!<grin>

Blame my presence on Empress Pixie. She’s too generous with her information.

@SirBailey I believe @IchtheosaurusRex‘s answer is for when you are at your destination, not for before you go. You call your pharmacy at home, explain the situation, and they will usually fax the prescription over to a pharmacy in your local area, provided you have their fax number. Or, you can explain the situation to the pharmacy at your destination and they’ll talk to your pharmacy at home directly and sort it out.

on review, i’m thinking that we haven’t dealt with the part in the details about “can’t afford to pay out of pocket”—that turns it into a stumper! as far as i’m concerned.

If you can’t afford to pay for one addtional refill prescription out of pocket, you really can’t afford to be taking an airplane-based vacation to begin with, so I am not seeing this as a reasonable query.

Not fair to say that. Suppose the person had ten prescriptions? Out-of-pocket this can be phenomenally expensive. Suppose the person is going to stay with her ill sister? Not every vacation means staying at a luxury resort.

You either call up your insurance company and harangue them until they pay for the prescriptions, you use your flexible savings account, or you go without.

You can also ask for only the amount of medicine you will need while away from home, which may help to cut cost a little. You don’t have to purchase a 30 day supply if you only need 14 days worth.

If you use a major pharmacy, such as CVS or Walgreens, etc. they are usually very helpful in these situations. The can transfer the amount you need to your location.

Don’t ask anyone to mail them to you, because if the shipper finds out it’s medicine, they will discard it, and you will be out of even more medicine and money. This happened to me, and I know your pain.

Most insurance companies have an emergency override for the medication. Mine required me to go to a participating facility to get my prescription, and then asked me how many pills I needed. The doctor then wrote up a prescription, and we got a bill for the co-pay about a month later.

@YARNLADY : if only all insurance companies were so sensible! That sounds like an excellent procedure for dealing with problem—thanks for bringing it to light. Too bad so many insurance companies try to create obstacles to paying out (in my experience).

@LexWordsmith It’s kind of embarrassing, because it’s happened twice. Once the entire bag containing my medications didn’t get in the car, and the second time, the medications didn’t get put in my bag.