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Medication Access program saves money,
lives
 St.
John’s launched a medication access program in 2005 to help patients with
the ongoing costs of prescription drugs.
Many patients were not taking their medications regularly,
if at all, because they could not afford to.
Couples like Loyd and Pauline
Suisegood (right) of Harrison, Ark., have monthly medication costs reaching nearly
$1,000.
“Trying to live on Social Security, we couldn’t survive,”
Loyd said. We became one of those couples you hear about – do we skip paying
the electric bill to pay for medicine? We think this (program) has been a
real blessing.”
Taking Care of Each Other
The Suisegoods, both 77 years old, moved to Harrison from
llinois in 2005. Pauline has encephalitis-induced Parkinson’s disease – an
ailment she’s lived with since 1965 after a bout with mononucleosis. She has
had nine strokes in the past four years. Loyd has atrial fibrillation,
coronary artery disease and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
Their chronic conditions require multiple medications that
both treat symptoms and diseases. For Pauline, her quality of life depends
on being able to be functional despite her Parkinson’s. Loyd is her
caregiver, so it’s especially important he maintain his health.
“We’re trying to survive and take care of each other – just
the two of us,” Loyd said.
Medication Access Program coordinator Jennifer
Gist helps people like the Suisegoods with the tedious process of filling
out paperwork to send to pharmaceutical companies that offer discounted or
even free medications to qualified applicants.
“We would be lost without her,” said Pauline. “Some of those
questions, you just don’t know how to answer.”
Companies that provide these discounts or free drugs have
been doing so for years, but have strict eligibility requirements and varied
paperwork processes.
“You save for retirement, but you could not possibly
anticipate the cost for medical care and also your prescriptions, so this is
something that catches people off guard and they are not able to afford all
their medications,” Gist said.
Medications obtained on behalf of the MAP patients last year
had an estimated total retail value of $650,000. About 866 patients were
assisted, with 5,900 applications for medications submitted on behalf of
those patients.
Chronic Conditions
“The most common disease states for which medications were
obtained included high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia and coronary artery
disease,” said Stan Greene, PharmD, director of St. John’s Pharmacotherapy
Management. “Of course, many of these patients had more than one of these
diseases.”
Greene said the program may have additional benefits,
including decreased health care costs. St. John’s Pharmacotherapy Management
did an assessment on patients who were served by MAP for at least 12 months.
They focused on the number of clinic visits and
hospitalizations during the period and then compared this to their
utilization during the 12 months immediately prior to enrollment in MAP.
There were about 150 patients included in the study and 54 of them were
self-pay. In this self-pay group there were 10 patients hospitalized a total
of 15 times pre-MAP enrollment.
During the 12 months immediately following MAP enrollment, there were only
two patients hospitalized a total of three times, representing an 80 percent
reduction in hospitalizations. This self-pay group’s use of clinic visits
declined 24 percent, from a pre-MAP number of 195 to a post-MAP figure of
148 visits over 12 months.
Better Health at Lower Cost
“It’s very difficult to show a direct cause and effect
relationship between consistent provision of medications and rate of
hospitalization and clinic visits in this type of retrospective study,”
Greene said. “But we are comfortable that there is a reasonable suggestion
that MAP contributes to improved health and lower health resource
utilization. It is our intent to continue studying this issue and produce
numbers reflecting a much larger population.”
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