Where to Find Help Paying for Prescriptions

Partnership for Prescription Assistance: If you’d like to speak to someone in person about programs that might be able to help you, the Partnership for Prescription Assistance is a helpful resource. Many people are familiar with PPA because of its frequent television commercials and celebrity spokesman, Montel Williams. Like NeedyMeds, the PPA doesn’t actually give away any medicine itself. Instead, it acts as a matchmaker and consumer advocate, taking patients’ information and—after reviewing their economic situation and medical conditions—connecting them with as many programs as possible. The PPA has two buses traveling across the country, stopping in all 50 states and more than 2,000 cities to educate low income and uninsured patients about drug assistance programs.

In addition, the PPA web site links to a variety of patient assistance programs across the country, and there’s also an entire section devoted specifically to getting help for kids.

Government resources: The government has a number of programs designed to help people with medication costs, although you generally need to be elderly, disabled or have little or no income. One of the main federal programs is Medicare, which now has a program that provides assistance by paying for part of the monthly premiums, annual deductibles and prescription co-payments under the new prescription drug program. Information and an application for this program is available here. For information on state programs, visit the National Conference of State Legislatures.

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