December 4, 2012 -- NeedyMeds, a national non-profit organization aimed at providing information to consumers on programs that help with the cost of medications and health care, is announcing a new system to track cost saving patient assistance programs for pharmaceuticals.
The program, Patient Assistance Program Update Service, or PAPUS, provides daily and weekly email updates of all the pharmaceutical patient assistance programs (PAPs).
According to Richard J. Sagall, MD, president of NeedyMeds, "These programs and offers are constantly changing. Most days our staff of researchers make anywhere from 10 to 50 changes in the PAP information. With PAPUS, anyone who works with these programs will learn about these changes quickly."
PAPs are programs offered by many pharmaceutical manufacturers. They supply medications at no or low cost to individuals who can't afford to purchase the medicines. The applicants have to meet certain requirements to qualify for these programs. Annually, PAPs provide billions of dollars worth of medication savings to consumers.
" This new tool will be especially helpful to advocates who help people find and apply to PAPs and other assistance programs. They need the latest information to best assist their clients," says Robin Hoffman, the NeedyMeds Coordinator of Information Databases. "We are so pleased to offer this free service that will keep them up-to-date on this ever-changing data."
Signing-up for PAPUS is easy. The link is on the NeedyMeds homepage - www.needymeds.org.
PAPUS is just one of many free services offered by NeedyMeds. Others include data on programs that help people based on their diagnosis, a listing of over 10,000 free/low-cost/sliding-scale clinics, over 1000 medication discount coupons and data on camps and scholarships for children and adults with specific diagnoses.
NeedyMeds also offers a free drug discount card that is saving users $1.5 million dollars per month. The card, which is accepted at over 70,000 pharmacies, offers a savings of up to 80% off the cash price of prescription medications, over-the-counter medications and medical supplies written as a prescription and pet medicines purchased at a pharmacy.
For more information on NeedyMeds or PAPUS, contact Richard J. Sagall, MD at NeedyMeds (978-281-6666) or [email protected].
About NeedyMeds: NeedyMeds, a national nonprofit, is a comprehensive and reliable source of information on assistance programs available for people having difficulties paying for their medications or health care. The website (http://www.needymeds.org) is visited by approximately 17,000 people each workday. NeedyMeds' information is always free, easy to access, and updated regularly. Unlike similar sites, NeedyMeds requires no registration and gathers no identifiable information on site visitors.
December 5, 2012
