Samaritan Center will help with Online Rx

Discounts on brand-name drugs can be found online through pharmaceutical companies' patient assistance programs with some patience and now with the help of a local charitable organization.

Ida Bluett, 72, has been on Medicare since she was 65 and paying for her own prescription arthritis medication.

It was hard for Bluett to afford the drugs living on a fixed income, but it became impossible last October when she became ill and needed additional prescriptions.

"I just couldn't make it. I couldn't get the drugs on the income I'm living on" she said. "I just shuffled my bills around, and I had to have it so I had to get it."

Bluett now pays $18 instead of the $25 she was paying for one of her prescriptions and said she is proud and grateful to be the first to receive help from the Samaritan Center in obtaining discounted prices.

The center in Jefferson City began offering financial assistance with prescriptions when it would pay the co-pay of elderly patients living on a fixed income. Those without insurance who didn't qualify for state health care programs would also receive help with their long-term prescriptions. But now the center has found a different way to help, using the online resource www.needymeds.com.

The Web site serves as a clearinghouse for cheaper prescriptions. It contains information about 314 pharmaceutical companies and identifies whether the company has a patient assistance program in which individuals may qualify for free or reduced-price medications if they meet the financial criteria. It also contains 122 forms for application to these programs.

Three center volunteers are now available to help people understand whether they qualify for financial assistance under the patient assistance programs. Individuals must provide documentation and may need to complete several different applications, depending on the medications already prescribed by their physician.

"The drug companies have a lot out there if you're eligible but they also have volumes of paperwork," said Marylyn DeFeo, Samaritan Center director. "We're trying to help people with what they're reading and get them ready, set, go."

Barbara Swanson, a center volunteer, helped Bluett reduce the prices of her prescriptions through the application process.

She said it was a matter of an hour or two for the initial application, and that Bluett recently received three months of prescriptions from two different pharmaceutical companies.

"Our aim is to help people on long-term medications and to zero in on the people who come to the Samaritan Center for assistance," Swanson said. "That's our attempt to streamline assistance to people."

DeFeo predicted the final word on Medicaid and Medicare budget cuts would bring a rush of people to the center.

"It's just going to be like a cyclone when it hits because the cuts are so deep," she said. "I think we will receive a lot of inquiries to that and to our medical clinic."

DeFeo said the center's ability to help people find patient assistance programs will benefit those it serves because it will be able to direct more money to assist with utility and food costs.