Saratoga County officials are partnering with Inside Rx to offer discounts on prescription medication.
Saratoga County’s Prescription Drug Discount Program began in 2011 with ProAct Inc. The goal: make prescription drugs affordable for residents without insurance. Saratoga County Administrator Spencer Hellwig says the program is meant to help people without other options.
“They’re individuals without an alternative form of healthcare. They’re not receiving insurance through their employer, they’re not Medicaid or Medicare eligible. They don’t purchase, can’t afford or for whatever reason don’t have insurance in place.” Hellwig added “as a result of the management service provided by Inside Rx, they’re able to receive the benefit as if they had coverage.”
Hellwig says the county is constantly trying to find the best deal.
“The health insurance and the benefits, this is constantly evolving; I mean changes are made even on an annual basis, not only for county employees but programs like this that are provided for residents,” says Hellwig “When we reached out and sampled the market the findings were that discounts that this particular vendor, Inside Rx, were much higher than those currently in place.”
On a conference call Monday, Hellwig said ProAct could not compete with discounts offered by Inside Rx. Hellwig added that the new partnership comes at no cost to the county. ProAct did not respond to a request for comment in time for broadcast.
Inside Rx CEO Leslie Achter says the New Jersey-based organization negotiates prices with pharmaceutical and retail companies to provide up to an 80 percent discount on name brand and generic prescriptions.
“Inside Rx is a free prescription savings program, and we are a discount card and we are really here to expand affordable access to prescription medication,” says Achter.
Achter says it is free to register for the discount program and membership cards were set to become active Tuesday.
In the county of almost 230,000 people, around 500 residents currently participate in the program. Stillwater Town Supervisor Ed Kinowski says the program has been vital for some of his constituents.
“There may be 500 or more people on it, but as you all know, education to our processes just needs to be ongoing. There are a lot of people out there that I am familiar with in the town of Stillwater that have taken advantage of it and given me a call about the past program as I’m sure they will this one,” says Kinowski.
Kinoswki says there will be no lapse in coverage for enrollees as the program transitions from ProAct.
Achter says the biggest discounts are for generic prescriptions, but Inside Rx has about 100 brand name prescriptions with deep discounts.
Information is being distributed to participating pharmacies, doctors’ offices and town halls and libraries in Saratoga County.
For more information, go to wamc.org.
