Patient Assistance Program

Our impact story involves the use of Microsoft technology to dramatically expand the number of clients who receive "free" medications from the Patient Assistance Programs from the pharmaceutical companies which is in concert with our mission statement outlined above. Given our role as a Community Mental Health Center, 85% of our 4,000 plus clients are either uninsured or underinsured. As many need medications to treat their mental health disorders, we became involved in providing free samples of medication to clients in need many years ago and accessing some of the Patient Assistance Programs offered by the pharmaceutical companies, however it was not until we hired our current Patient Assistant Coordinator, Mark Haberer, LPN, that this program truly took off. Mark was previously employed in the IT field for approximately 20 years before returning to school to pursue his nursing degree and his experiences in this field enabled us to use his vast knowledge and skills to expand our use of technology to benefit clients. Mark joined our staff in April 2007 and inherited significant problems that had been created by our previous PAP Coordinator. These problems included applications for assistance that were incomplete, a lack of organization of the vast amount of information that had been accumulated, medication orders that had not been submitted in a timely manner and other related problems. Mark immediately began using a variety of Microsoft programs to "fix" these and other problems. He used Internet Explorer to interface with our Drug Assistant software to become more effective and efficient in accessing the medications available for our clients. He uses Excel spreadsheets to organize, track, and order medications for clients. He uses Word exclusively to develop templates for letters that need to be sent to clients and pharmaceutical companies. This technology has truly allowed us to expand access to free medications to hundreds of clients in a short period of time while increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of our program. As an indication of the results of his use of Microsoft technology, we expanded the number of clients receiving "free" medications from the Patient Assistance Programs of the pharmaceutical companies from approximately 700 in 2007 to over 1,500 as of today. For a twelve month period of time from 4/08 to 4/09, we placed 2,778 orders for medications to these companies with a market value of $2,373,119! This program has saved taxpayers of our community literally millions of dollars over the past several years, not to mention the benefits to clients who otherwise may have gone without the medications they need, all of which could not have been possible without the technology available and used by our program from Microsoft.