It makes it more likely that someone will buy and pick up their medication as opposed to going without it because of cost, said Dr. John Lin, an oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.\n<\/p>\n
Lin was part of the team at Penn Medicine as a fellow and worked closely with Doshi and others on proposals and reform research.\n<\/p>\n
But too many people who could benefit from the payment plan, like some of his cancer patients, are still left in the dark, Lin said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that making patients aware, the government is not really good at that,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it has to get better.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Awareness about the prescription program has improved during the first year of its existence, according to findings from a national poll<\/a> by the PAN Foundation<\/a>, a health care charitable and advocacy organization.\n<\/p>\n But it is inconsistent, said Amy Niles, chief mission officer at PAN, and gaps in knowledge still remain.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIn an ideal world, I think any health care provider who knows that they\u2019re prescribing a really high-cost medication to a Medicare beneficiary should have a conversation,\u201d Niles said. \u201cSometimes, I think it\u2019s happening. Sometimes, it\u2019s just not.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Researchers and advocates are pushing the government to create a point-of-sale enrollment option.\n<\/p>\n Currently, if someone gets to the pharmacy counter and is charged an amount they can\u2019t afford, and they want to enroll in the prescription plan, they would have to leave the store and arrange enrollment with their Medicare insurance provider.\n<\/p>\n All of that makes it less likely for someone to complete the process. Opting in at the moment of purchase would be an improvement, Doshi said.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s easy enough for consumer goods, why can\u2019t we do this for lifesaving medications?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n For now, advocates and supporters hope that increasing awareness about the program will help more people and be enough as they propose additional reforms for Medicare.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIf you know you have a diagnosis where it\u2019s possible that you could have a big bill for your medication, even if you don\u2019t have one today, I would say definitely look into it,\u201d Lin said. \u201cI\u2019d encourage people to sign up for it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It makes it more likely that someone will buy and pick up their medication as opposed to going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[918,69,71,70,40435,2355],"class_list":{"0":"post-121990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-medicare","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news","12":"tag-prescription-drugs","13":"tag-seniors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}