Prescription Medication Costs

If you send me a list of the medications, I can see what I can find at our local pharmacy.

And I believe with my Max plan at Humano, I get $5000 USD coverage per year.

Thank you so much!  I really appreciate that. 
We are having to join as a family at first with Mapfre so that my parents can get onto a plan as they are ages 63, 69.  Once we are all set up, I can leave to another plan after a few months, which will likely be Humano.  Thank you.  I will PM the list and appreciate anything you can help with :-)  The process overall is proving more difficult that originially expected.

Your Humano MAX plan is 5,000 RD per year honey!

yes, but Mapfre does not have that level of coverage and we have to go in on this plan to start as a family because my parents are older.  (at least that is what this broker is telling me) We will switch to Humano later but my parents won't be able to as they are in their 60s

wait, confused...., $5000 RD or US?  Per year or month?

planner wrote:

Your Humano MAX plan is 5,000 RD per year honey!

Yikes - that doesn't cover much! I'm glad I'm down to one maintenance med and it's pretty cheap!

That's what I thought.  That's only about $88USD per year??  Makes no sense

Doing the math, it looks like I'll probably have less than $100 out of pocket for prescriptions this year. That includes my one maintenance med (Synthroid), one round of antibiotics (unfortunately, I'm allergic to the cheapest ones!), and some buffer for other things I might need.

The good news is that my anticipated spend on prescriptions is much lower than it was in the US! When we left the US last year, I was pre-diabetic and had spent 2 years trying to get my AIC back to normal so that I would avoid getting Type 2 Diabetes. Over those two years, I was able to get it to drop a little, but not down to normal. After almost 11 months here, I had it checked and I've brought it down from 5.9 to 4.9 - well within the normal range!

I also no longer need the muscle relaxers I was taking fairly regularly for tension headaches, and since I'm no longer working, I don't need to take the ADHD meds that I was on.

I've dropped about 15 pounds without really trying, and even though I haven't been exercising as I should, my health has improved considerably! That benefit from living here easily outweighs having to pay out of pocket if I need additional prescriptions! Plus - I'm saving money every month on premiums! My current policy here is about $25 less per month than my last employer plan in the US.

Other ex-pats have similar situations. Removing ourselves from a stressful, overly competitive environment works wonders! Many expats stop taking medications because they don't need them any more. Flying back to the US I can feel my blood pressure go up soon as the wheels hit the ground!