Novartis Response On Assistance For Medicare Patients

Posted by rob on December 23, 2005 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

I have been in contact with Novartis regarding the situation that so many Medicare patients now face with the large co-payments and deductibles that will be required under the new Medicare prescription drug coverage. Novartis has responded and I will give you a summary of what they have said below. For those patients who will face a serious financial hardship because of the new Medicare program some of the programs listed below may be able to offer some help.

Rob

Contact Novartis PAP
1.  If a patient has financial difficulty in being able to pay the co-payments and deductibles to obtain their Gleevec they can call the Novartis PAP number at 800-277-2254  They will try to help patients find ways to make the necessary co-payments so they can continue to receive Gleevec.

Contact PSI
2.  Novartis and other drug companies have provided funding to a group called Patient Services Inc. http://www.uneedpsi.org/ which can provide financial assistance for co-payments based upon the severity of medical and financial need. PSI specifically has a program for CML patients, they will consider providing assistance on a case by case basis for both Medicare and non-Medciare patients. They can consider the following types of help:

Premium Assistance Program
# Cobra Payments
# High-risk Payments
# Open-enrollment Payments
# Guaranteed Issue Payments
# Full Assistance or Share-of-Cost
 
Copayment Assistance Program
# Full Assistance or Share-of-Cost
# Spend down Assistance

Financial Hardship Waiver Program
# Determine eligibility for Copayment Waiver
# Determine eligibility for Compassionate Product

Contact Partnership For Prescription Assistance
An additional site that might be able to also provide assistance to CML patients is:

Partnership For Prescription Assistance
www.pparx.org

They help patients find financial resources through public or private programs.