Article published - January 9, 2010

Credit: NAPA VALLEY REGISTER

Clinic Ole program helps cut prescription costs

Making ends meet for local patients

By NATALIE HOFFMAN

For a local woman battling Lyme disease, a new Clinic Ole program to cut the cost of prescription medication came at the right time.

“Being diagnosed with Lyme disease 15 months ago, and having no insurance and no job, I was on faith asking God, ‘Now what?’ … I was too sick to walk, barely talk, and my hand shook so much I wasn’t able to do my own application,” said the woman, whose name is being withheld for her privacy.

Thanks to the program, she said, she is now saving more than $2,000 each month on prescription medications for her condition.

Natividad Macias, a pharmacy program staffer at Clinic Ole, said the scenario is a common. Low-income patients can be forced to choose between paying for necessities like rent and utilities or their prescription medications. The program eases this burden, she said.

“They would be in dire straits without it, because a lot of these prescriptions are for health conditions that are chronic,” Macias said. She also said that the vast majority of prescriptions for which people seek aid are for diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma medication.

Jenny Del Rosario, also a Clinic Ole staffer, said officials launched the program in March of 2008, when about 30 patients were using it. Today, about 580 people are enrolled. The goal this year is to add 500 new patients to that tally, Macias said.

Patient referrals for the program come from doctors, nurses and other health care professionals. Eligibility hinges on household income and size. Macias said in 2009 patients saved about $704,000 in prescription costs.

Clinic Ole patients enrolled in the program use the clinic pharmacy, and Macias and Del Rosario say they’re collaborating with other local pharmacies to improve patient access to affordable medications.

Because brand-name drugs are donated to the program by dozens of pharmaceutical companies, the program comes without costs to taxpayers, Macias said. A combination of state and private grants pay the salaries of Macias and Del Rosario, hired at the clinic exclusively to manage the program.

The program reaches not only Clinic Ole patients, but clients seeking medical help through the Napa County Health and Human Services Agency. In efforts to spread the word about the program, Del Rosario is spending a few days each week at Clinic Ole’s Upvalley campuses in St. Helena and Calistoga and also plans to reach out to select private medical providers.

Del Rosario said the costs of prescription medications can be astounding, especially when clients are on two or three different medicines. Most patients enrolled in the program are working adults in their 30s and 40s, she said.

“One patient was putting almost her whole paycheck toward medication, so it’s definitely a big help to the patients,” she said.