Prescription Assistance is more than just Medicine

I grew up twenty minutes outside of urban Philadelphia; however I spent a lot of time in the city when I was younger because of my dad’s job. In order to pursue my undergraduate education, my studies brought me to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. However, it was really only after leaving that I realized I was a Philadelphian at heart, and that upon graduating I had to return home.

During the summer of 2013, I participated in a program at Einstein Medical Center in North
Philadelphia designed to give pre-medical students experience in the hospital setting before committing another four years to medical education. While I did learn a great deal about a number of medical specialties, the residency process, and just the ins and outs of the hospital environment, I also became keenly aware of the population that Einstein serves: generally low-income individuals who lack access to primary health care, and for whom the emergency room becomes their regular doctor’s office.  When patients were prescribed certain medications on the inpatient floors or in the ER, there was always a lingering thought in my mind: “but will our patients actually be able to take this medication?”  In addition to these bigger-picture questions of our medical care system, that summer was really the first time that I realized there was more to the City of Brotherly Love. When I was younger, my family spent a lot of time in Old City where I saw a very narrow segment of the city, most of which included the well-maintained historic parts that tourists frequent.  Because of that experience, I knew that I wanted to become involved in Philadelphia with working to end some of the great disparities I saw at Einstein.

This wish came to fruition when I became an AmeriCorps Member with the Philadelphia Health Corps (PHC) where I am now serving with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health Ambulatory Health Services at Health Center 5. The demographics of the area that Health Center 5 serves are very similar to those seen at Einstein. The median household income in the area directly surrounding the health center is $15,394. Go a few blocks west and it goes down to $12,316. Compare this to $75,505 of the area where I spent a lot of time as a kid, and all of the sudden you get a very different picture of the fifth-largest city in the country. These are more than just numbers. When you only have $1,000 a month to cover everything from food to rent, medication seems like an extra. It starts to make sense as to why someone might not be taking their high blood pressure medication because when choosing that over dinner, the health benefits might not seem as important. This is why the prescription assistance programs that we administer at the city health centers are so vital. They make it so that our patients don’t have to make that choice.  I am only part-way into the third month of my year of service and already my view of the city has broadened immeasurably. I want to become a practicing physician and ideally stay in Philadelphia. My experiences with PHC and Einstein have shown me that it’s one thing to prescribe medication, but it’s another to know that your patients can actually afford it. I can’t turn a blind eye to the realities facing my patients, because that’s ignoring an entire facet of their lives. I don’t yet know what the answers are for these problems, but at least now I am aware.

This post was written by PHC member Maggie Smythe.
Maggie serves at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health - Health Center #5 as a Patient Assistance Program Advocate.