Don Frye is covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield as well as Medicare, but there are still some prescriptions he can’t get filled under those plans.
So, on a hot Thursday afternoon, the Bozeman man sat on board a large, orange bus parked in the Bozeman Library parking lot.
The bus is sponsored by a consortium of pharmaceutical companies and aims to help people who can’t afford their medication by filling prescriptions for free or nearly free.
People like Frye walked onto the bus, answered a few questions about what medication they needed and what means they had to pay for prescriptions, and then were given information on what assistance the pharmaceutical companies could offer.
Jeff Trewhitt, a spokesman for PhRMA, the lead lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry, said the bus was a way to consolidate the efforts of 40 companies that each has an individual assistance programs.
“We want the people who need these medications to get them,” Trewhitt said.
The industry Trewhitt works for has come under fire for the cost of its product and size of its profit margin. In Washington, lawmakers are eyeing ways to knock down the costs of drugs.
Thus, some have seen the bus n which TV personality Montel Williams pitches on advertisements broadcast nationwide n as a public relations ploy for an embattled industry.
The May issue of Health Affairs reports that a survey of the various assistance programs offered by drug companies “found much variability in their structures and application processes.”
“Most cover one or two drugs. Only 4 percent disclosed how many patients they had directly helped, and half would not disclose their income eligibility criteria,” the article says. “A better understanding of (patient assistance programs) might clarify their role in improving access to medications, the adequacy of existing public programs, and their impact on cost-effective medication use.”
As a whole, the Partnership for Prescriptions Assistance has helped 20,000 people in Montana and 6 million in all, Trewhitt said.
And Trewhitt said good publicity is not the aim, and that in terms of health care costs, pharmaceuticals are hardly the problem.
“Ten cents of every health care dollar” goes to medication, he said.
Also, prescriptions are a lot cheaper than the surgeries and hospital stays that can be avoided.
“It’s that there are too many people who are uninsured, and when you don’t have coverage, all health care is expensive,” he said.
Could the industry do more to lower the cost of prescriptions?
“We feel we have a cost-effective product,” Trewhitt said.
“We have set up these programs to lend a helping hand,” he said.
For Frye, he was happy to have the chance to see what assistance might be available.
“It’s good for us. We’re just seeing what’s available,” he said.
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