Complete List Of Nursing Diagnosis

(upbeat music) - [voiceover] so theobjective of today's webinar is to introduce you tothe different types of patient assistanceresources that one would find on the needymeds website. who is needymeds? we are a national non-profit organization. we were founded in the mid-90'sby a retired physician, dr. richard sagall, whois our current president,

and a medical social worker. they discovered patient assistanceprograms and they thought every patient and everyprescriber should know about them. and so since this was the mid-'90s and the internet was becominga major source of information, they thought it madesense to create a website, so that's what they did, andit began with just a handful of patient assistance programs. we are considered aninformational resource,

so through our website andour toll-free helpline, we connect patients toprograms that will provide financial assistance for healthcare costs, including medicationbut beyond medication. we do not offer financial assistance, but we refer patients to programs that do. and currently about 1.3million people use our website every year and this includespatients, family members, healthcare professionals,patient advocates,

social workers, communityhealthcare workers and so on. so as i mentioned our websitebegan with just a handful of patient assistanceprograms, but today we have about 7,000 points ofsavings on our website, and they'll range fromprograms that will provide free medicine and coupons todiscounted imaging services. all the information on ourwebsite is accessible at no cost, and you'll never have toregister for this information. we're not going to ask you to create

a username and password or togive us your email address. so, you can remain completely anonymous. and basically you're gonna find all of the financial assistanceprograms in one place on the needymeds website and thatis the patient savings tab which i'll show you in just a moment. there's a strategy to lookingfor patient assistance on the needymeds website. the first place you want to look are the

prescription assistance program. the second place you want to look are the diagnosis-based assistance programs. those two sections will have the greatest financial savings forpatients, in other words, you'll either get free ordeeply discounted medicines, services, supplies and so on. once you've looked throughthe paps and the dbas, the next place you wantto look would be coupons,

and then you'd alsowant to see what savings you could get with our drug discount card. we have a few other resourceson our website as well which i'll point out to you very briefly, but as i mentioned you wantto start by looking for paps because you'll get thegreatest savings with a pap. for those of you who arenew to needymeds or new to this area, paps are prescriptionassistance programs, and these are programs that are sponsored

by pharmaceutical manufacturers. these will provide freeor deeply discounted medications to people that qualify. there's no law requiringa pharmaceutical company to have a pap, so eachcompany will do its own thing and not every drug willhave a pap program. eligibility requirements willvary from program to program, application processesand the timing of those application processes willvary from program to program.

there's really no commonthread except for the fact that a patient's healthcareprovider needs to be involved and that means providinga valid prescription for the medication andsigning the pap application. some of these programs willhelp people who are uninsured. others will help peoplethat have insurance, but perhaps do not have drug coverage, and other programs will helppeople who have drug coverage, but perhaps cannotafford their co-payment,

so as i said it variesfrom program to program. and where can you find moreinformation about paps? well, that's where the needymedwebsite comes into play. so here's our website, i'llmake the screen larger for you. if you were looking for a pap, you could do it in one of two ways. the first is that youcould simply type the name of your medication intothe drug search box and then click on drugsearch and it would pull up

all the paps that are currently available for that particular medication. the second way, as imentioned, is to go to where we keep all of our financialassistance resources, and that is the patient savings tab. the patient savings tab, asi said, is where you'll find the paps, the diagnosis-basedassistance program, coupons, rebates and more,and a few other resources that i'll touch on aswell in our presentation.

so, let's continue our discussion of paps. so, let's say i wanted to find abilify. abilify is a brand name drug,so i will click on brand name. i would click on a. scroll down, and here is abilify. and if you look right underthe word abilify, you'll see that there's a scissors iconand the scissors icon indicates that we currently have acoupon available for that.

you can click on thislink and it will take you to the manufacturer's couponand this may be of value if, for example, you oryour patient are in a jam and you need the medication right away, a pap application would takea few weeks to be processed, but you could immediatelyprint out the coupon and then bring that to thepharmacy and get a discount, so keep that in mind ifyou're ever in a tough spot. where it says "view cr article,"

cr stands for consumer reports. we are very proud tohave a partnership with consumer reports andthey've allowed us to put information aboutmedications on our website. so here is an articlediscussing anti-psychotic drugs and it mentions abilify and that may be of interest to you or your patients. so, let's click on abilify. currently we have one pap available.

if we had more than one papwe would put the programs that provide the greatestassistance at the top of the list, and programs that providelesser assistance toward the bottom but today wejust have one for abilify. so, here is where you'll see the name of the patient assistance program. it's a bristol-myers squibbpatient assistance foundation sponsored by bristol-myers squibb. if you have any questionsabout the application process,

or the eligibility requirementyou'd want to contact the bristol-myers squibbpatient assistance foundation using their toll-free helplineand ask them directly, whereas needymeds is theinformational resource for the yellow pages of pap programs. it's best to ask questionsabout the application to the pharmaceutical companies directly. here you'll see we have an active pdf link for the application whichyou can complete online

and print out and get ready foryour prescriber's signature. the medication section willtell you which medications are covered in this program,in this case you have an oral solution as well as tablet. the eligibility requirements are perhaps the most important sectionof this application process. often income requirements are based on a certain multiple of thefederal poverty level. so in this case a bristol-myerssquibb wants to help people

who live at or below 250% ofthe federal poverty level. well, what does that meanin dollars and cents? if you click on the fpl incomecalculator, and let's say we have a family with ayearly income of $51,000, it's a family of three people. we calculate and we cansee that this family is at 253% of the federal poverty level. and as you recall bristol-myerssquibb wants to help families at or below 250% ofthe federal poverty level,

so in this case we're justthree percentage points over the income limit. don't give up just yet, whatwe would recommend is to call bristol-myers squibbpatient assistance foundation and ask them to make an economichardship exception for you. there's some subjectivityinvolved in the approval process of these applications, and ifyou're just a few percentage points over, maybe eventen percentage points over, they have the authority tomake exceptions for people.

so make a phone call andif you don't get the answer you like the first time,dr. sagall would always recommend calling backlater that day or perhaps the next day and speakingwith a different person who perhaps might look morefavorably on your application. and as i mentioned before notevery medication will have a pap and if that's the case,if you're looking for help with a medication that doesnot currently have a pap, it's always good to call thedrug company and ask them

to make an economichardship exception for you. they can and do this quite regularly. and if your applicationis denied, appeal it. there's always an application-- there's always an appealprocess whether it's completing a form or having yourdoctor write a letter or perhaps you wouldwrite a letter yourself. whatever the appeal processis, it's always worth the time because they often do say yes to appeals

and i don't think alot of people are using their right to an appeal,so i encourage you to do so. scrolling down you'll seein the application section, it will tell you how theapplication can be obtained, and how you can return it,and it will also tell you the decision timeframe, inthis case it's within a week. you always want to giveyourself between, let's say, three to four weeks from thetime you apply to a program and to the time youreceive your medication,

so keep that in mind when you're planning your renewals for these applications. and when would you plan for a renewal? in the medication section, you'll see it says"reapplication" this will tell you how often you have tore-apply to this program and in this particular case,they want you to apply once every year so you want to markthat on your calendar as well or put that in your patient's chart.

and, again, keep in mindit can take a few weeks from start to finish so make sure you, you do keep a breast of these deadlines. one thing we would alsorecommend against is printing out stacks ofapplications and holding onto them. even if you use the sameapplication for yourself or for your patient, youalways want to work off of a, an application off the website each time you apply to the program foryourself or for your patient,

because these programschange all the time. new programs open, programs close, the eligibility requirements change, the application processchanges, and if you-- if you return an outdatedapplication they won't process it. they will deny your applicationand ask you to re-apply and you'll cost yourself timeand you don't want to do that, so make sure you get a freshapplication off the web each time you apply foryourself or for your patient.

scrolling back (mumbling)and clicking on the patient savings tab, you'llnotice that you can also search for a pap for a generic medication. and i'll just point out to youthat needymeds has partnered with rx outreach to fund aprogram that will provide free generic medicationto people that qualify. if the generic medicationyou're looking for is part of this select groupof medications, you'll find it just by searching for thegeneric name of your drug.

if, however, you wanted tosee the complete list of drugs we are currently offering forfree to people that qualify, you could search forthe name of the program, and the name of our, our program is called the generic assistance program, so i would click on programname list, select g, scroll down and here we seegeneric assistance program. again, you'll see here it's sponsored by needymeds and rx outreach.

we are currently fundraisingto expand this fund for people. these are the medications that we're currently providing assistance with. we particularly selectedgeneric medications that can be quite expensive for peopleand some people won't have access to them and so that'swhy they've selected to be on this list, but as i saidwe're fundraising and the more money we raise means themore people we could help and also the more drugs wecan include on this list.

so, again, this is likeany other pap application. you would apply and we're allowing one request per patient. so, again, i found that by goingunder the program name list or you can simply searchthrough the generic name of the medication you're seeking. you can also search for the name of the pharmaceutical companythat makes your drug, and you can look for programs that way.

just wanted to point outsomething new at needymeds. here you'll see a $4 genericdiscount drug program. this is a national directory of discounted drug programs at pharmacy retailers. so, for example, if i wantedto see all of the programs in the state of georgia,there are currently 21. these are generic medicationsthat range between four dollars and fifteen dollarsusually for a 30-day supply and you'll see that they're alphabetized.

from costco and cvs torite aid and sam's club and a little knownfact, you do not have to be a member of costcoto use their pharmacy. so, if you ever needed to paythe cash price for costco, you could check out theirpharmacy prices as well. they put them on their website, actually. so, that's new at needymeds. some of these applicationsfor paps can be complicated, and if you or your patientsare having difficulty

you can look at the helpwith prescription assistance application section right here. this is the nationaldirectory of organizations that will help peopleapply to these programs for free or a discounted fee. so, for example, in the state of iowa there are 106 programs thatwe know of, there may be more, but this is what we know sofar, run out of local nonprofits who will help peopleapply to these programs,

who will help them complete the paperwork, and gather the appropriatedocuments, so you can click- you can send a patient here, if you don't have timeto help them yourself or if you are a patient or afamily member of a patient, you can look at thisdirectory and find programs in your community thatmay be able to help you. if you know of a programthat's not currently listed, please let us know.

we want the website to beas up-to-date as possible, so you can send us an email if you know of any programsnot currently listed. back to the patient savingstab, i'll just let you know that underneath that sectionyou'll see we have a section for free and low-costclinics across the country. we have them dividedbetween medical clinics and dental clinics, andyou can search by state or you can search by zip code.

so for a medical clinic, for example, if i wanted to see all theclinics in massachusetts, we currently have 257free or low-cost clinics. we give you a map to itslocation, a link to the website, the address, the telephonenumber, the eligibility for who they'll see at thisclinic, how you would pay, hours of service, and alsowhat languages are spoken. you'll also notice that it will tell you what service or services are provided.

this is where you'll findclinics that will do std testing or women's health services and so on. so, you may want to check thisout and if you have a patient who doesn't have insuranceor has limited insurance, this may be a goodoption for them as well. and, again, we encourageyou to pay attention to the dental clinic sectionbecause even if you do have health insurance, it oftendoes not include dental care, so this may be a good optionfor you or your patients.

i also mentioned thatwe have a coupon section and this is another way thatpatients can save money. here you'll find coupons, rebates, free samples and so on. this is for prescription medicines as well as over-the-countermedicines and supplies. you can search by thename of your product or you can search by a category,so if i search for, let's say, category and i want to seeeverything available for diabetes

you'll see we have a listingof coupons, the latest to diabetic testing stripsand monitors and so on. so, the other major waythat a patient might find financial assistancewould be to look at the diagnosis-based assistance section. first of all, just tolet you know that the disease information pages willprovide general information about a particular conditionor disease and will also list, for example,

links to the paps that arecurrently open for medications related to that conditionand offer suggestive terms that you could search on the website. but the diagnosis-based assistance section is a place where you'llfind a lot of help. you'll find a few co-paycards and perhaps also assistance for the cost of medications, but this is where you're gonnafind help with things like wigs for chemotherapypatients, testing, supplies,

house cleaning services,transportation services, help with insurance premiumsand co-pays and so on. so if you want to search,for example, for cancer you can search for cancer ingeneral and it will pull up a listing of non-profitsthat will provide assistance for various expenses related to cancer. we list programs that have anational area of service first and then after the national programs, you'll see we have themalphabetized by state.

so this is for cancer in general, but you could also search fora particular type of cancer. so going back to searching by a diagnosis, i can search under b for breast cancer. i can search c for cervical cancer. i could search p forprostate cancer and so on. so, we encourage you to lookat these resources as well. and we cross-post diagnosis-basedassistance programs with our government programs as well.

so, where there might be a federal program that will provide freebreast cancer screening, we've got that listed in thebreast cancer diagnosis section as well as the governmentprogram section, so you won't miss it if you searched inone place but not the other. so, again, you cansearch by your diagnosis or you can search by your state or the name of the programif you already know it. under that you may also bepleased to know that we have

a directory of camps andretreats listed by a diagnosis. for example, if you wanted to see camps for children with add or adhd, we list them first byprograms that accept campers from all over the countryand then by state. and again you can search for all kinds of diagnosis and conditions. you could also searchby the name of the camp or the camp locationor the camp's sponsor,

and the same is true of scholarships. so, for example, if you wantedto see if we had scholarships relating to people with, let's say, blindness. we currently have 16scholarships for blindness, either people who areliving with blindness or people who have a familymember with blindness. this is another little resource that you could check out as well.

and as i already mentioned,we have a directory of government funded programs. this is where you'll findfederal programs, state, county-level programs and as i mentioned, it is cross-posted withdiagnosis-based assistance when the program helps aspecific condition or disease. this is also where you'regonna see, oh, i'm sorry, all of our ship sites are locatedin this directory as well. and we also have the pace site.

pace is the acronym that means program of all-inclusivecare for the elderly. it's a medicare and medicaidprogram that will help people meet their healthcareneeds while living at home, so they don't have tolive in a nursing home and you'll find that alllisted here by state as well. we've also includedfederal poverty guidelines, a more in-depth explanationof them and also a tax return request form for yourconvenience because that's often

required when applying to these programs. underneath that you'll see we have additional resources as well. healfundr is a medicalcrowdfunding platform. this is new at needymeds. we recently designed this last year. it's like kickstarter or indiegogo, except that it's exclusivelyfor medical expenses, either expenses that have already

been incurred like a huge medical bill or perhaps something thata patient is saving up for. organizations can also use this platform for their fundraisers as well and we'll help you postit all over social media. what's unique abouthealfundr is that we verify the diagnosis and we alsoverify the money raised is actually paying the medicalbills so that's different compared to other crowdfunding platforms.

and this we hope will reduce or eliminate the chances of fraud. and we don't care whatkind of medical expenses you want to fundraise for,whether it's something that's necessary or whetherit's a cosmetic procedure. it could be orthodontics for your children or it could be sex reassignment surgery, we will not discriminate against you. going back to the patient savings tab,

under healfundr you'll see we have a directory of discountedimaging services. we currently have about 2,500 centers participating in this program. the average savings are between 50 and 75% off the cash price of an mri or cat scan. there are eligibilityrequirements and if you're interested in learningmore about this program, you could either callthis number, 888-693-8867

or you could click here and begin the application process online. and going back to the patient savings tab, the last resource i'll point out is the medical bill mediation service. if you or your patient hasincurred $1,000 or more in unpaid medical bills, thismay be of interest to you. this medical bill mediationservice will charge you an upfront fee of $200 andfor that fee they will work on

your behalf to negotiate yourbills down with the billers, and they say that the average savings is more than 30% off the bill, and sometimes even morethan 50% off the total bill. but they do, like i said,charge a $200 fee upfront, and you'll have to weighthe pros and cons of that. if, for example, you hadto stay in the hospital when you did not have health insurance, and it cost you thousands of dollars,

this may be an option for you. if you're interested inlearning more about this, feel free to call needymedsat our 800 number. so, excuse me. the last way you cansave money with needymeds is to use our drug discount card. this is what it looks likeand i'll point it out to you on the homepage in just a moment. but what's important to knowabout the drug discount card

is that you can save betweenzero, meaning nothing, and 80% off the cash priceof an over-the-counter medicine or supply if it'swritten as a prescription, a prescription medication,or a pet prescription if you're buying it atthe people pharmacy. and this card can only be used at a brick and mortar pharmacy. it cannot be used for online purchases. last month the card saved consumers nearly

4.5 million dollars andit's used between 80 and 85% of the time it's presentedto the pharmacist. so that's how we knowthat the card is working and actually saving peoplemoney because they're using it more often than they're not using it when they check a price at the pharmacy. how does the card work? well, pharmaceutical manufacturerswill negotiate discounts with the pharmacies throughthe aid of an adjudicator,

and in this case the adjudicatoris a company called argus. and the discounts arere-negotiated frequently. they vary from month-to-month and even from pharmacy-to-pharmacy, and they may even vary fromone cvs to another cvs. so we always encouragepeople to try the card each time they have to makea purchase at the pharmacy. there are no eligibility requirements, there's no registration, there'sno activation of the card

and there's no application. there are a lot of drugdiscount cards out there besides needymeds, so what's differentabout the needymeds card? well, first of all,it's always free to use and it's always free to obtain. we will never charge you to get the card, and we will never chargeyou to use the card. some of the other cards outthere actually will charge you to get the card and theneach time you use the card

you'll incur a small transaction fee, but that's not the casewith the needymeds card. also we do not collect anyidentifiable information about our users so it's totally anonymous. we're not collecting your names and so we're not telling your names and what you're purchasingto third-party marketers. we only track the dollar amount of savings and the number of cards--

the number of times thecard is used each month. and, third, because we area non-profit, we're not trying to maximize our ownprofits with this card which allows us to pass on thegreatest savings to the consumer. so we, needymeds, will collecta small transaction fee each time someone uses one of our cards. but this small fee helpsus with the administration of the card and ourwebsite, and as i mentioned the card is always free to the users.

our card never expiresand you can share one card with among a whole family. all you have to do is bring your card and your valid prescriptionto the pharmacy. it's currently acceptedat over 63,000 pharmacies across the country and that itincludes all the major chains and many of the smallerones as well, too, now. and if you ever havetrouble using the card, on the back of each card isa toll-free helpline that

connects you to argus, theadjudicator of the card. so if a pharmacist has aquestion or a concern or says that you have to use yourinsurance, you can't use the card, you can always call argusand they will clarify to the pharmacist that the pharmacisthas to accept your card. who can use the card? literally, anyone can use our card. the only rule is thatit cannot be combined with health insurance,so if you are uninsured,

of course you can use the card anytime and if you have public ora private health insurance you can use this cardinstead of your insurance. if, for example, your medicationis not covered on your plan or the co-payment ordeductible are too high or you find yourself in a coverage gap like the medicare part d donut hole, you can use this cardbecause it's, you're paying-- you would use this with,as, off the cash price.

so if you're using thisfor medicare for part d, keep in mind that it's the sameas paying cash and therefore won't count toward gettingyou out of the donut hole. i hope i-- i hope i said that clearly. so if you have insurance, you can use the cardinstead of your insurance, always your right to choose that. but if you're in themedicare part d donut hole,

it will not count toward gettingyou out of the donut hole. i also want to mention thatbecause we're not collecting any names or any informationabout the users of this card, we hope that it fillsthe gap so that where someone might not be eligible for a pap or a diagnosis-based assistance program because of their insurancecoverage or their income level or perhaps even their citizenship status, anyone can use thiscard and so in that way,

we hope to fill a gap andoffer yet another way that people might save money ontheir healthcare expenses. how can you get yourneedymeds drug discount card? very easily and i'll point this out to you in just a moment on the website. you can print one off the website and the paper card is just asgood as a plastic card. you can send a self-addressedstamped envelope, and we'll mail you a plasticcard if you prefer that.

if you work for anorganization, a business, a government center,a healthcare facility, a doctor's office or hospital, you can request a free supplyof cards for your patient and there's never anycharge for these cards. you can order as many as you like. we'll include brochures whichcome in various languages, which explains needymedsand how to use our website, and if you want, if youare an organization,

we will customize the cardswith your name and logo on them, and there's no charge forthat if you let them-- if you don't mind that they'reprinted in black and white. color printing is moreexpensive and so there would be a charge for a color logo,but if you don't mind a black and white logo, we'rehappy to print that for free for you so that insteadof saying needymeds, it'll say the name of your organization. so there are three tools thati want to point out to you

on the website in just a moment. we have a drug pricingcalculator which will allow you to compare the discount you'dreceive with the needymeds drug discount card at variouspharmacies in your area. we have a pharmacy finderwhich tells you which pharmacies accept the card, and we have a drug discount card appthat you can download for smart phones, and if,again, if you're an organization we can custom make one withyour name and logo on it.

i'll also show you on thewebsite how you can print off a paper version for yourselfor for your patient, and also i'll point out the customersupport number for argus. so going back to the needymeds website, here's the homepage. if you double click the picture of the needymeds drug discount card-- sorry, it's a little slow. huh, let's see here.

there we go. so if you double click thepicture of the drug discount card it'll take you to the drug discount page. you can print one byclicking on this link. it will take you to adownloadable pdf of the card and you can have a papercopy of the card immediately. you can fill out this form andwe'll mail you a plastic card or you can send aself-addressed stamped envelope to this address and we willmail you a plastic card.

if you want to see whichpharmacies are currently accepting the card, youcan type in the name, the address of the pharmacy here and it'll pull up a directoryof all the cards in your area. any pharmacy that's listedin this pharmacy search is legally contracted to accept the needymeds drug discount card. they have to accept thecard, and sometimes the pharmacist may not know thatthey have to accept the card,

and if you find yourself, as isaid, with a pharmacist who's not knowledgeable aboutthis, simply call the number on the back of the card whichwill direct you to argus the adjudicator and arguswill speak with a pharmacist and clarify the situation. so, again, any pharmacylisted in this directory is contracted to accept our card. here's the drug pricing calculatori mentioned, right here. it's right at the top of the homepage.

if i click on search and theni click price calculator, this will take you to argus' website. this is where you're gonnafind an estimate of what you would pay on a particularday for your medication. so you would select thename of your medication. you could select up to fivepharmacies in your zip code. you would plug in the quantitythat you're seeking and then you would select price and overhere on the right-hand side, it would create a table withthe name of your medication,

the location of the pharmacyand the estimate that you would pay on that day atthat particular pharmacy. and, again, these priceschange from day-to-day and it's just an estimate. it may be a few dollars give or take. and i found that by goingto the needymeds homepage and then clicking ondrug pricing calculator. so those are the tools and if you wanted to have the smart phone for your app,

you could click here anddownload the app for your phone. right here, here's the smartphone app and again if you are an organization we candesign a smart phone app for your website with yourcompany's name and logo on it. so if you're an advocatei just wanted to point out that we have a few resourcesthat may be of interest to you, if you work with patients and you help patients apply to these programs. papus is patient assistanceprogram update service.

it's a free service thatwe will provide to you. you can opt to receiveweekly or daily email alerts every time needymeds makes a change or updates a pap on our website. you'll know about that changeif you sign up for papus. so, you can opt for daily or weekly alert. paptracker is software thatwe offer to organizations. if you're a non-profit wecurrently have a grant program that you may be eligible for.

paptracker is softwarethat streamlines the application process forapplying to these programs. if you have one patient whoneeds five different medications on paps, you can imagine howtime-consuming and laborious it would be to completefive applications by hand, whereas paptracker allowsyou to put the patient's information into thesoftware once and then you generate the five differentapplications automatically. it also helps you tokeep track of renewals,

and when it's time to re-apply. it helps you track wherethe order is and where, when the order ships andso on and it also helps you generate convenient reports especially if you have to report to funders. you can generate detailedreports about the dollar amount that you're saving patientsby helping them apply to these programs and soon, so you can contact me if you'd like furtherinformation about paptracker.

if you want to orderbrochures feel free to do so, here you can order them inenglish, spanish, portuguese, russian, and we alsohave a cambodian brochure that can be downloaded. here you'll see patientassistance resource education which is a course very similarto this webinar except it targets healthcare professionalsand patient advocates, and people who completethis course at the end and pass the exam receive acertificate of completion.

there's a small fee for that,but if that's a hardship for your organization or healthcare facility, we negotiate that fee, ithink it's $15 per student. but if that's a hardship for you, we'll totally work with you. patient advocate newsletteris a monthly newsletter where i try to providetips for advocates and also tips that could be relevantto patients as well, so it's not just foradvocates necessarily.

but i try to focus on thingsthat are new at needymeds, and resources that mostpeople don't know about it and things of that nature. we also have a volunteerproject that comes with a free manual and ongoing technicalguidance and support from yours truly to help youstart a volunteer program, to train volunteers to helppeople apply to pap programs. if your staff doesn't have time to do it, perhaps you'd like tostart a volunteer program

at your organizationor healthcare facility. and if you're interestedin becoming an ambassador for needymeds our volunteerambassador program will gladly accept any time youwould be willing to give us. an ambassador might representneedymeds in their own local community by giving abrief talk about needymeds at their local library, or apta meeting, or civics meeting. it also might mean representing needymeds at a local health fair ora conference and perhaps

sitting at a table and handingout needymeds brochures. if you're interested in that i'll provide my contact information as well. so with that let me go backto the presentation and-- here is where you canfind my email address. it's laurie@needymeds.org,if you want information on any of the programsi just mentioned to you, if you need any guidanceor support going forward, if you have any questions about what

we've discussed today,feel free to email me. if you want to order a supplyof drug discount cards for yourself or for your patientor if you want any brochures, please email my colleague,deb, deb@needymeds.org and she would even behappy to help you design a customized card with yourorganization's name and logo. if you or your patients needhelp navigating the website or finding a patient assistanceprogram for something that you don't see on our website,

please call our toll-free helpline. our operators are readyand willing and happy to help you navigate the website. or if you don't even have internet access or your patients don'thave internet access, our operators will dothe looking for them. call our toll-free helplinemonday through friday, 9:00 to 5:00, easterntime and let us help you. so with that i will take anyquestions that you currently

have so if you'll just give me a moment i'll start reading through the questions. so this question is, "how often do we updatethe contact information "on the clinics andthe dental assistants?" we have a research teamdedicated to keeping the website up-to-date, in factmost of the people on staff at needymeds areresearchers and so those-- depending on which databasewe're talking about,

whether it's the clinics orthe diagnosis-based assistance or the paps it varies in termsof how often they're updated. some of them are updatedmonthly, some of them every two or three months and someof them every six months. if you know of somethingthat's not up-to-date on the website please do send usan email so that we can correct that, but we dotry to be as up-to-date and comprehensive as possible. this is a question about themedical bill mediation program.

the question is, "does thebill need to be one single bill "or can it be combined bills "that add up to the amount stated?" i believe it can be a number of bills that add up to $1,000 or more,but that would be a question that would be best posedto the needymeds operators, and that number is provided on the website as well as here, the toll-free helpline. you can get that informationfrom the toll-free helpline.

but i believe it's a combinedtotal of $1,000 or more. this question is, "can the coupons and drugdiscount card be combined with "medicare and governmentprescription insurance programs?" no, coupons and the drug discount card cannot be combined withany other insurance. they're used when you paythe cash price of a medicine or over-the-counter medicine or supply. so, no, it cannot becombined with insurance.

this question is aboutthe drug discount card and over-the-counter supplements. so the question is, "can the cards help withover-the-counter supplements "that are prescribed by a naturopath "if you're purchasing thesupplies at a pharmacy?" it has to be a validprescription and i believe that pharmacies currently only consider prescriptions from physicians,physician assistants,

nurse practitioners, andso on as valid prescribers, but you can double checkby calling the pharmacy in question but i don't believethat a naturopath prescription would be considered a validprescription at a pharmacy. but, again, you could go toyour primary care physician if you do have one andjust simply ask them for a prescription for whateveryou need, some patients will get it over-the-counterprescription, will get their doctor to write prescriptions forover-the-counter supplies like

depends undergarments ordiabetic testing strips or even over-the-countermedicines like aspirin, if the patient takes aspirin every day. so these are just little waysthat a patient might save on the overall healthcare cost. so coupons, this is aquestion about coupons. coupons can be used ifyou're paying the cash price and if you are in-- if you have medicare partd using a coupon means

that you're paying the cashprice and getting a discount off that cash prize so, yes,you can choose to do that but as i said it will not get you-- it will not work toward gettingyou out of the donut hole, if that's where you're at. and the question, "how muchdoes it cost to get an app "designed with your organization's logo?" usually, if it, you know, if you're-- if you're a non-profitorganization we can,

usually it's free if it's black and white. this is a question if youwouldn't mind emailing me the name and contact informationfor your organization and then i can connectyou with someone on staff who could talk about that with you. so, but again if you wanted plastic cards, there's never a charge for that. so the question is,"why do pharmacies agree "to participate in the drugdiscount card programs?"

so, yeah, there are a lotof drug discount cards out there in addition to the needymeds one and they all work thesame, and the question is, "why would a pharmacyagree to a discount?" and the question is becausethey're still making money. because if you're gettinga discount on a medicine, they're still making moremoney than they would if you didn't get that medicine at all because you couldn't afford it.

and also if you're goinginto a pharmacy to get, to use your drug discountcard and save on a particular medicine you're still walkingthrough the aisles and perhaps you notice that you'reout of q-tips, say you're out of floss and you're out oftoothpaste and you're picking up other things as you'rewalking through the aisles, there's a reason why thepharmacy's at the back of the pharmacy and all of the otherproducts are in the front of the pharmacy because theyknow you're gonna do other

shopping while you're in therewaiting for your prescription to be filled so they'restill making money. and also all of the otherpharmacies are participating and it wouldn't help them establishcustomer loyalty if they were the only pharmacyin the neighborhood who, who was not participating inthe program and so for all these reasons pharmacies areincentivized to participate in drug discount cardprograms because they're still making money even with the discount.

let's see, "can you use a couponand the drug discount card "for the same prescriptionat the pharmacy? no, it's usually one or theother but you can certainly ask the pharmacist to tell youhow much you would save with the drug discountcard and then compare that to your coupon or evenyour own health insurance, if you have health insurance. you can always ask thepharmacist to compare the drug discount card to yourown insurance if you have it.

more often than not yourco-payments are probably gonna be cheaper than whatyou get with a discount off the cash price with our cardbut occasionally it does happen where the cash price,you know, is less than, less than or the same as whatyou'd pay with your co-pay. any other questions at this time? ok, well, thank you so muchfor your attention today. i hope this was helpful. again if you have any furtherquestions that i didn't get to

please email laurie@needymeds. if you have questions aboutordering drug discount cards or how to customize them pleasecontact deb@needymeds.org and if you or your patientsneed help looking for assistance programs pleasecall our toll-free helpline. we're happy to help you. and again we're always lookingfor feedback and suggestions. our website is a work in progress. if you can think of anyinformation that's not currently

on the website if you thinkwould be helpful let us know, we appreciate your suggestion. so, the next overview webinarwhich will be very similar to this one will take placeapril 22nd at 2 o'clock. you can register for that bygoing on the calendar on the homepage and again thiswebinar will appear on our webinar library page in aweek and you would find that by going to the gettingstarted tab on the homepage. you'll see getting startedin the blue banner,

click on that and thenyou'll see webinar library and you'll see our old webinars as well. so, until next time we wish you good health and happy days. thank you so much.