Access to Drug Discounts Widening; All Health Centers to Offer Program
Posted on: Wednesday, 28 September 2005, 15:00 CDT
By BOB GROVES, STAFF WRITER
New Jersey will expand its discount prescription drug program for low-income and uninsured patients to all community health centers by mid-2006, health officials said Tuesday.
The Department of Health and Senior Services and federal pharmacy consultants will help 62 centers apply to the federally funded discount program during the current fiscal year, Health Commissioner Fred M. Jacobs said. Five other centers - including those in West New York and Jersey City in Hudson County - already have such programs, Jacobs said.
Community health centers are located in 15 counties, including Bergen, Passaic and Morris. They provide services, from prenatal to geriatric care, to patients who are uninsured and underinsured, and those with Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance. Fees are based on their ability to pay. New Jerseyans make more than a million visits to the centers each year.
The drug discounts are especially aimed at patients with chronic health conditions - such as diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, HIV and heart disease - which can be managed with regular care and prescription medicine. Discounts are determined by patients' income, insurance status, medical needs and other factors.
"Many of these chronic conditions have a disproportionate impact on minority communities in our state," Jacobs said in a statement. "Access to health care - including prescription drugs - will help reduce these disparities."
State and federal officials will meet with health center representatives Oct. 19 to dis-cuss patients, medications, program models, fee schedules, and on-site and local pharma- cies.
Source: Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.
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