If you’ve ever gotten sick it’s no surprise that medical treatments cost a small fortune -- The doctor visits, hospitals, and of course medications.

The news has been full of drug companies jumping the cost of some medications four or five times the old cost. EpiPens, Cycloserine, Isuprel and Nitropress immediately come to mind. It’s the new trend. Sure there are always the generics when you can find them. They are great.  Many times generics don’t exist.

There’s a little known program though that can help out. The program, directly from the companies themselves, distribute free drugs. That’s right, free. You can find out more by going to www.pparx.org and find out more.  The website will tell you which drugs are available, from what company, and whether there’s financial assistance available or if they will give you pills free. Generally speaking you're going to need to be financially stressed for the program. So you will need to qualify.

And then there’s www.goodrx.com. What this site does is tell you which pharmacies in your area charge the least. Need a particular drug? Goodrx.com will tell you who has it and what they charge so you can compare, or at the very least not have to drive around from Walgreen to CVS, to Costco, and so forth.

Try it. The savings can be substantial over time.

Another technique to reduce Rx costs is for drugs which come in tablet form, ask the doctor to prescribe a pill in twice the intended dosage and use a pill cutter to cut each pill in half. The effect is generally to cut the cost by 50%.

Pill splitting is a common practice. It's simply taking a pill that's double your usual dosage and splitting it in half. The main reason to split pills is to reduce health care costs. The cost of a 90-day supply of 5mg pills is often the same as the cost of a 90-day supply of 10mg pills.

But be careful – not all pills can or should be split. Likewise, cutting an extended-release pill will damage the coating and release the drugs into your system all at once. Any sort of capsule type pill cannot be split because the contents will spill out as well.

And not all pills split the same. Some are powdery, making them difficult to split exactly, and you may lose some of the dosage. Unscored pills (ones without a mark in the middle) can be hard to split because you may not accurately determine the middle of the pills. Other pills are hard, scored, and easy to split. If you decide to split pills, buy a pill splitter. You can buy one for less than $10 at a drugstore, and it makes splitting easy and even.

Wondering why medical costs keep escalating wildly?

Read this:  Secret Rebates Cost you a Fortune