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Does anyone know of a website (or other source) that may lists the prescription meds that are actually available through CAJA?
They have a great propensity for saying “This medication is not available” or “We don’t have that” or “You need to buy that at the farmacia”.My understanding is that the CAJA dispenses generic meds almost exclusively and, according to my endocrinologist, they tend to have just one product for each condition. Somebody correct me if you know otherwise.
[b]costaricabill[/b], I had saved [url=http://portal.ccss.sa.cr/portal/page/portal/Gerencia%20de%20Logistica/Informaci%F3n%20General%20de%20Compras/Lista%20de%20Medicamentos]this address,[/url] but was advised that it may not be people friendly, unless you are a pharmacist.:roll: Sometimes the link works….and sometimes it doesn’t 😉
David is absolutely correct.
I had one medication prescribed for me that we had to wait two weeks before Hospital San Juan de Dios had it in stock.
Expecting this to happen on occasion I have a minmum 15 days extra of all my medications on hand. 😀
CAJA is so underfunded they can afford only generic medications but there are occasions that we are prescribed other than generics because of their effectiveness. 🙁
We simply go with the flow.
Hi what do you recommend to a person soon to retire and moving to CR do for health care until we get our residence?
[quote=”rainbow123″]Hi what do you recommend to a person soon to retire and moving to CR do for health care until we get our residence?[/quote]
I wonder why teh caja is having so many problems.. is it the companies that dont pay.. I mean as individuals in order to live here we are obligated to pay..
is it management???
I think my wife and I will probably use private until our Residence is approved.It sounds like there private is quite a bit cheaper than USA.IS.
[b]davidd[/b] have you not been reading about the many large companies that do not pay their monthly fees, including the US Embassy?
Ex-pats are in the minority here, so our payments are only a drop in the bucket.
[b]Rainbow[/b], there isn’t much to choose from, unless you already have an insurance policy from the USA that will reimburse you. If you are [u]under 70[/u] and have no [u]pre-existing conditions,[/u] there is INS.
Also, be aware that CAJA may not cover all of your Rx’s so you will be required to purchase them ‘over the counter’ which is what you will have to do, until you have your [i]cedula[/i] (which can take a year or more) and can then use CAJA services.
[quote=”davidd”][quote=”rainbow123″]Hi what do you recommend to a person soon to retire and moving to CR do for health care until we get our residence?[/quote]
I wonder why teh caja is having so many problems.. is it the companies that dont pay.. I mean as individuals in order to live here we are obligated to pay..
is it management???
[/quote]There is a huge inequity in who finances the Caja and education in Costa Rica.
I don’t think the wealthy contribute their fair share so financing is primarily on the backs of the employees. The well to do in Costa Rica have various means of cutting their taxes or just ignoring taxes altogether.
We ex-pays are obligated to pay very little for what we get, at least in the case of my wife and I. We pay a little over $120 a month and get excellent preventive care and the doctors at Hospital San Juan de Dios have proven to be more observant of our physical ailments than the doctors were in the States.
When we need an appiontment for something that occurs between our regular preventive care appointments we are scheduled an appointment within two days and we don’t wait in line at 5 in the morning to get it.
As to what you mean by [b][u]management[/u][/b] depends on who you mean by management. Those who actually manage the system do a very good job with what they have to work with.
If you are talking about the bureaucracy, I think there is probably a lot of skimming of what funds there are at the top.
[quote=”costaricafinca”] [b]Rainbow[/b], there isn’t much to choose from, unless you already have an insurance policy from the USA that will reimburse you. If you are [u]under 70[/u] and have no [u]pre-existing conditions,[/u] there is INS.
Also, be aware that CAJA may not cover all of your Rx’s so you will be required to purchase them ‘over the counter’ which is what you will have to do, until you have your [i]cedula[/i] (which can take a year or more) and can then use CAJA services.
[/quote]You have to be aware of where you buy the medications that the Caja doesn’t dispense. There can be a huge price difference from one to another.
There is a pharmacy in Santa Ana that sells our needed medications cheaper than we can get them in San Jose or elsewhere.[quote=”sweikert925″] Is it possible to just hop on a plane to Miami for a visit, get a 90 day supply of your medication and use your Medicare benefit to pay for it and then return to CR?[/quote]
Sure, you could do just that if you could establish a relationship with a prescribing physician in the U.S. [u]and if[/u] you were not constrained to using a mail-in pharmacy service with the attendant delay in processing.
Or, once you had that relationship, you could have that physician fax in a prescription to be delivered to an address that you could access on that trip to Miami or wherever.
What has become practically impossible is to import medications from the U.S. to Costa Rica using either the Costa Rican Correo (postal service) or one of the transshippers based in Miami (Aerocasillas, Jet Box, et al). The bureaucratic hurdles are daunting. You could, however, have meds sent to a friend or relative who’s coming to Costa Rica so they could bring them to you.
Of course, somewhere in this consideration, you’ll have to decide if it’s cheaper to fly to Miami and pay the co-pays, etc, or whether its better to pay cash over the counter at a retail pharmacy here in Costa Rica.
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