I have this problem because one of my children has Cystic Fibrosis, and takes several specialty medications. Paying retail prices out-of-pocket for the three most important meds would cost me over $10,000 for a 30-day supply. So this is a prohibitively expensive option to consider.

Trying to get the doctor to write a prescription for more doses than needed is generally pointless. All prescription meds have FDA-approved dosing limits. Unless there is enough flexibility in the limits for your med, no pharmacy or insurance company will honor a script that exceeds the FDA-approved limits.

However, most pharmacies now offer 90-day refills, you just need a doctor's prescription requesting that duration. If I recall correctly, the doctor can prescribe up to a 90-day supply with 3 refills on a single order. Pharmacies and prescription plans usually allow you to get a refill once you've used 90% of your meds if refilling at a local pharmacy, 75% if using mail-order. This window slides with each refill, which you can take advantage of to build your emergency supply. You just need to be patient and diligent in pushing the limit.

There are some bumps in the road, though. One med in particular, Tobi, has been a huge problem. My son takes this in alternating 28-day cycles; 4-weeks on then 4-weeks off, at a retail cost of almost $5k per 28-day supply. Because of Tobi's 28-day on/off cycle, the insurance company said they can only send one 28-day supply at a time (two 28-day supplies would account for 112 days, exceeding the 90-day limit).

Ultimately, after months of arguments, threats, and a letter from my attorney, the best I could do consistently is get two 28-day supplies shipped out for each refill. But sometimes they screw-up and send me three 28-day supplies, other times only one. When they send one by mistake they will send the second supply immediately when I call.

Just make sure you don't get lax in maintaining your supply of meds once you build it up, and always rotate your emergency supply with the fresh refills. My mail-order plan lets me place a refill order any time, and it will be shipped as soon as its eligible. This helps make things easier if you can get the same kind of service.

Refrigeration might not be an issue for your meds, but it is for my son's. I have an Engel 12V/DC refrigerator for medicine storage hooked-up to two deep-cycle batteries and maintained 24/7 by a charger, and I have two portable generators with enough gas to run them for 3-days without resupply. The idea is the batteries would hold the meds if the power goes out when I'm away, then I'd use the small generator to keep the batteries charged (and run an adjacent fridge/freezer for food -- the larger generator would power the main fridge, furnace for heat/hot-water, and sewer holding tank pump). Once I got into my 3rd-day of gas I'd have to decide whether to continue to stay put, using the generator an hour or two each day to recharge the batteries, or move to a better location.

But I like the idea of making ice to keep things cold in 5-day coolers. The Engel can be used as a freezer, too. So I could move frozen foods and ice-packs to the Engel, and rotate frozen ice-packs to coolers to keep both meds and food from going bad. If I only need to run the generator 2 hours a day to recharge the batteries, that 3-day supply of gas becomes a 36-day supply, and I wouldn't even need to change the oil and spark-plug in the generator (only 72-hours run time).