Jesse Maughan, pharmacy manager at the Logan Clinic Pharmacy, says if a patient can't afford his or her medicine, they aren't getting the healthcare they need.
Finding ways to make the cost of prescription drugs more affordable for patients has proven a perplexing challenge for years in healthcare but at the Logan InstaCare providers have discovered a direct and simple solution to help their patients. They just walk over to the Logan Clinic Pharmacy.
Recently, a patient was prescribed a medicine for deep vein thrombosis. He came back to the InstaCare and said he couldn’t take the medicine because he went to his pharmacy and was told it would cost $700, which was more than he could afford.
“He wasn’t going to take a blood thinner that he really needed because he couldn’t afford to get it,” says Sondra Alder, medical assistant.
Sondra knew exactly what to do.
“I just went over and talked to Jesse and within 10 to15 minutes he had the patient’s information and had a thing for him from the drug company to get it for him at no cost,” she says.
Jesse Maughan is the pharmacy manager at the Logan Clinic Pharmacy and he figured out the man could get his medicine for free if he went to a VA pharmacy. He made sure the patient’s provider would have that information available and he found a coupon from the manufacturer that got the man his first month’s supply for free.
Sondra Alder, medical assistant, says Jesse Maughan has helped her patients get the medication they need.
Jesse says often veterans or people on Medicare don’t realize what kind of coverage they have so the pharmacy just sort of “quarterbacks” for them to get them the medicine they need. He says this is the type of issue they deal with every day with physicians and medical assistants seeking help finding effective medications they can prescribe that’ll be covered by insurance.
“They forget sometimes how easy it is for us to solve these types of problems because it’s not what other pharmacies usually do,” Jesse says.
Sondra doesn’t forget.
“If I have a patient who says I really can’t afford my prescription, I go over and talk to the pharmacy team,” she says. “They’ll do whatever they can to get patients the best deal that they can.”
“They have a pretty good relationship with us and they know if their situation is bad, they can come over and pick our brains,” Jesse says of the InstaCare providers.
Jesse says providers prescribe what they believe is needed but Jesse said his team, who may better understand what is covered on insurance, can offer them alternatives that make it less expensive for patients. The final decision is always up to the provider.
“If the patient can’t afford it, then they’re not getting the healthcare they need,” he says. “So that’s when we can step in to either find another option for the patient, find a rebate card, or find a financial assistance program. There’s a lot of different avenues we can take to take care of that patient instead of just leaving them standing there not knowing what to do. And a lot of times it ends up with us not even doing the script. We might just be passing it off to a drug company that has a financial assistance program so the company just mails it to them separately.”
Jesse says helping patients afford their medications is also good for business at the pharmacy. Even if a patient ends up getting a prescription filled somewhere else, they often bring the rest of their business back to the InstaCare pharmacy because they appreciate the help the staff has offered them, he says.
“At the end of the day, if we can directly help our patients get the medications they need, that’s what we are all about,” Jesse says. “We want to put our expertise and experience to work for our patients and making a positive difference for them. It makes our work much more rewarding.”