Community:
Link to Community Resources for Defrayed Medication Costs, Education, and Materials
- Request supplies (e.g., peak flow meters) and unrestricted grants from pharmaceutical firms and local stores/pharmacies. Usually, all that is needed is a letter (signature by a physician always helps) requesting an unrestricted educational grant or an unrestricted grant to improve asthma patient care. Usually $500 to $1,000 can be obtained from a single company without difficulty. Contact your local pharmaceutical company representatives and ask what is required to obtain such a grant from their firms.
- Obtain free passes/memberships from local YMCA/YWCA for people with asthma.
- Request in-kind services from local specialty groups (allergist, respiratory therapy, etc.).
- Involve pharmacies to increase participation in drug assistance programs.
- Develop form with pharmacist for each indigent program. Make arrangements with local pharmacy.
- Identify community provider resources (e.g., specialists) for referral.
- Present information about the asthma improvement project and request funding.
- Request funding from service organization (Lions, etc.) for specific item or equipment or services (e.g., spirometers).
- Request discounts on fruits/vegetables or catered meals for special education programs or health fairs from local grocery chains.
- Advocate for expanded Medicaid benefit packages.
- When approaching organizations for help, health centers should quantify requests clearly.
Example: Request for peak flow meters for one year. 500 patients x cost/mo x 12 months = ___
Distribution costs per patient (staff time + mailing + data entry) x 500 patients = ___ Total Request = ___
- Make face-to-face contact for requests; this generally works better than letters, except for formal grant requests.
- Patient Prescription Services is a company that helps indigent patients get medications from pharmaceutical programs with greatly reduced effort from the usual application process. It comes as a software package or a direct service. The software package allows provider modification, acting as a medicine flow sheet and problem list.
- Maintain a sample application from each patient using the indigent drug program to use for obtaining refills.
- Tie refills in with planned visits.
- Ask all pharmaceutical representatives who detail the office for unrestricted grants to support the effort.
- Ask senior leader to allow staff to present to potential funders as paid time.
- Ask senior leaders and Board of Directors to suggest/help find possible grant opportunities or funding sources.
- Invite Medicaid managed care leaders to be involved in team.
|
|
