| Roane County Health Center Has Full-Time Drug Finder
Wednesday July 3, 2002
The Charleston
Gazette
By Fanny Seiler
Staff Writer
The Roane County Family Health Care center has experienced a 300 percent
increase in the number of
patients receiving free prescription drugs and center director Glenn D. McEndree said
most of them are
seniors living on a fixed incomes.
"It's a significant number and it's growing," he said Monday.
When the center initially hired someone for its medication assistance program, the
person also had other
duties, McEndree said, besides trying to obtain free drugs from manufacturers. But
the need for free
prescription drugs has grown so much that the employee now works full time on
trying to obtain free
maintenance drugs from pharmaceutical companies.
The center absorbs the cost of the employee's salary, he said.
McEndree said a lot of paperwork is involved in obtaining the free medication.
The center also receives free samples of drugs from manufacturers' sales personnel
who want the
center's doctors to use the medication. "We utilize those samples," he said.
McEndree said the center tries to provide either the free samples or free medication
from the companies
to patients who can't afford prescriptions. He didn't know the actual value of the
drugs, but said it was
significant and between $50,000 and $100,000.
In Roane County, the income level is lower than the state average and the
unemployment rate is fairly
high, he said.
McEndree is also president of the West Virginia Primary Care Association. He
expressed the primary
care providers' concerns last month to a legislative interim study subcommittee
about the anticipated
increase in the over-65 age group in the next five years.
"We feel not enough emphasis is being placed on the aging population," he told the
subcommittee.
Most of the current focus is on children, which he said was good. But he said new and
innovative
initiatives must be developed to address the aging population's needs.
McEndree said the state's investment in primary care centers had paid dividends.
The centers see all
patients regardless of their ability to pay, and statewide 70 percent of them were
Medicaid, Medicare and
uninsured, he said. The number of uninsured is growing, he said.
When it comes to the elderly, he said "maybe we are sticking our heads in the sand."
McEndree suggested this week that the state have a task force look into seniors'
needs. If there is a
problem now with prescription drug costs, he said, wait until the baby boomers reach
age 65.
The primary care centers are reimbursed by Medicaid to see patients on the basis of
their costs. The
centers have to do a cost report and Medicaid determines an average of the costs.
The average cost of a visit to a primary care center is $56, he said.
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