Free guide · Scarlet Beast En español →
When you can’t afford your medicine: what to ask, the programs that help, and buying online safely
For anyone standing at a pharmacy counter doing the math, and the people beside them. This page does not tell you which medicine to take or what any program will decide. It passes on, by name and date, what the National Institute on Aging, the Food and Drug Administration, Medicare’s website, Social Security and HealthCare.gov say about paying less: generics, drug-company and state programs, Medicare’s Extra Help, what to do when a plan says no, mail order, and how to tell a safe online pharmacy from a dangerous one. It puts the questions you pick on one sheet to read out loud.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Before anything else
- Say it out loud. The National Institute on Aging says to tell your doctor if you are worried about paying for medications: they may have suggestions or resources to share.
- Don’t stop, skip or split on your own. The National Institute on Aging says not to skip or take half doses of a prescription drug to save money, and the FDA says to always talk to your healthcare professional before splitting a tablet.
- Ask about a generic. The FDA says a generic medicine is required to be the same as a brand-name medicine in dosage, safety, effectiveness, strength, stability and quality.
- On Medicare? Medicare.gov says Extra Help lowers drug costs for people with limited income and resources, and you can apply through Social Security at 1-800-772-1213.
- A price online that seems too good to be true is one of the FDA’s warning signs of an unsafe online pharmacy.
- Very sick after missing a medicine? That is a medical question for right now: call your doctor, or 911 in an emergency.
- If the weight turns into thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 at any hour.
- This page saves nothing. There is nowhere on it to type the name of a medicine, and it loads no analytics. Your browser still keeps a history.
More help
- No doctor, or no way to pay one: When you need a doctor and can’t pay.
- A bill you already have: Medical bills.
- Coverage that ended: Losing health coverage.
- Medicare, and free counseling about it: Getting older.
- Keeping track of what you take: My medicines.
- Getting ready for the visit: Appointment prep.
- An offer that feels off: Is this a scam?
- Your state’s health and benefit offices: Your state’s offices.
- Every bill at once: When you can’t pay your bills.
- Before a hard phone call: Call script.
- Right now: Get help now.
- All our free tools.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse or pharmacist has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 7, 2026 on each source’s own pages, except the first, read on October 9, 2026: the National Institute on Aging’s “Taking Medicines Safely as You Age” (content reviewed September 22, 2022); the FDA’s Generic Drug Facts (11/01/2021), Tablet Splitting (08/23/2013) and BeSafeRx pages (09/21/2020); Medicare.gov’s Help with drug costs, Medicare Prescription Payment Plan and Insulin pages; Social Security’s Extra Help page; and HealthCare.gov’s page on prescription medications. We did not copy the yearly dollar limits, name any medicine, or review any drug company’s program; we did not read Medicaid’s drug rules, which differ by state. We called none of the phone numbers. Sentences marked “ours” are our own. Changed on October 9, 2026: until then this guide passed on a MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia article, whose publisher does not allow its text to be reused. Those lines now come from the National Institute on Aging, the FDA and Medicare.gov; the lines no page we can use says were taken out, and so were the links to two websites only that article named. What’s new lists them.