By Dick Broom

But a lot people who could benefit from those programs either don’t know that they exist or don’t know how to access them. Even if they do, they often need help filling out the applications and providing the necessary health and financial information.

That is what FirstHealth Cares was set up to do.

FirstHealth Cares is the pharmaceutical assistance program of FirstHealth of the Carolinas. Since it began in 2003, it has assisted close to 4,000 people in Montgomery, Moore, Richmond and several other counties.

About 1,200 people are in the program at any one time.

Between January 2004 and May 2006, the FirstHealth Cares staff processed 12,266 requests for new prescriptions and refills that represented a cost savings to patients of more than $2.5 million. Of course, that is money the drug companies would never have seen anyway.

“Most patients who come to us would not have taken the medication, because they simply don’t have the means to pay,” says pharmacist Julie Vargas Pharm.D., manager of FirstHealth Cares. “They would say, ‘I either eat or I buy my medicine,’ and obviously they have to eat. So then they would end up in the emergency room with heart failure or a diabetic crisis, because they didn’t have the medicine to control their disease.”

The medications that are available at no cost through FirstHealth Cares are limited to those prescribed for chronic conditions including diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and asthma.

Physicians refer some patients to the free prescription program; others are referred by their county’s Department of Social Services. But patients don’t have to be referred. They can apply for assistance at the FirstHealth Cares offices in Pinehurst or Troy.

“We set up an initial interview to see if they are eligible,” says Angela Burgess, a FirstHealth Cares pharmacy technician in Troy. “Then we have them bring in all their medications and financial documentation. We print out the applications from the drug companies so the patient doesn’t have to deal with any paperwork whatsoever.”

FirstHealth Cares technicians use special state-developed software that tells them which pharmaceutical companies offer which drugs. When they find a match, they send the patient’s physician an application form to sign and then forward it to the drug company. The drug companies send all free medicines to the FirstHealth Cares office in Troy, where staff pharmacists fill and label the prescriptions and send them to one of three community pharmacies for patients to pick up. Those pick-up points are FirstHealth Standard Drug in Troy, the Prescription Shop in Southern Pines and Tarheel Drug in Robbins.

“Pat McClain, who owns both the Southern Pines and Robbins stores, has been so gracious to let us use them as drop-off points,” Vargas says. “He doesn’t charge us, even though it takes his staff some time.”

Pharmacist Angela Elkins, R.Ph., and her staff at Standard Drug also provide free medication pick-up for FirstHealth Cares patients.

“If they require counseling when they pick up their prescription, I’m happy to do that,” Elkins says.

Initially, FirstHealth Cares was only for people 65 and older, those who were eligible for Medicare. In 2004, drug assistance was extended to younger low-income people who didn’t have insurance.

Now FirstHealth continues to assist Medicare patients, even those who have enrolled in a Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit plan, because several major pharmaceutical companies still offer free medications for those patients.

According to Vargas, the program not only benefits individual patients and their families, but “it also saves money for hospitals and contributes to a more efficient health care system by decreasing the number of emergency room visits and hospital admissions.”

FirstHealth Cares began as a two-year initiative funded by the North Carolina Health & Wellness Trust Fund. That fund’s ongoing support—as well as generous funding from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, the FirstHealth Montgomery Foundation and the federal Health Resources and
Services Administration—has allowed the program to continue and expand.

FirstHealth Cares has been the primary beneficiary of the FirstHealth Montgomery Foundation’s major fundraising project each of the past two years. Last spring’s benefit auction raised $67,835, much of which will go to the drug assistance program.

“It’s a great cause, one that people can identify with very easily,” says Kerry Hensley, president of FirstHealth Montgomery Memorial Hospital. “We have a lot of uninsured people in this area, a lot of working poor, so FirstHealth Cares is really important.”

Some of the money donated by the FirstHealth Montgomery Hospital Foundation is used to provide medications for people who are waiting for their free drugs to come from the pharmaceutical companies.

“Once a patient is accepted into our program, there is generally a three- to four-week waiting period before their medications arrive,” Vargas says. “The Foundation grant allows us to cover that gap for patients with certain conditions by purchasing a one-month supply of a select few name-brand medications.”

The FirstHealth Montgomery Foundation also has helped FirstHealth Cares buy and dispense certain generic drugs, which most of the pharmaceutical companies don’t normally provide through their drug assistance programs.