Can’t afford your prescription? You have options.

Last year in January, Cole Schmidtknecht of Appleton arrived at a Walgreens pharmacy counter to find that his daily Advair Diskus inhaler was no longer covered by his insurance. 

That meant the price he would have to cover had risen by more than 700 percent. He was unable to afford it, and left empty handed. Five days later, he died of a fatal asthma attack. 

Now, his family is suing Walgreens for not offering Schmidtknecht available workarounds or alternative medications. They’re also suing Pharmacy Benefit Manager OptumRx for failing to notify him of the cost increase in advance. 

If Schmidtknecht had known that he had other options, he might be alive today. But according to Bobby Peterson, founder and public interest attorney at ABC for Health, the health care system isn’t designed to be navigable for the average person.

“You need a level of expertise,” Peterson told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “You need to know what exactly the details of your plan are, how to get them and how to stand your ground when people say ‘No.’”

Dan Weissmann, creator and host of the podcast “An Arm And a Leg,” agreed.

“Thinking about what your health care costs you is like the worst possible game of Choose Your Own Adventure, because there’s a million choices, and everything is particular to you,” Weissmann told “Wisconsin Today.”

Weissmann and Peterson explained what options the average person might have when encountering surprisingly high prices at the pharmacy counter.