Prescription Drug Assistance Grant Program
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office has awarded over $1 million in grants to nonprofit community health centers in an effort to provide wider access to prescription medications to those populations where private or public financial assistance is unavailable. The grant funding was awarded to community health centers for the purpose of providing free or significantly discounted prescription medication or co-pay assistance to low income and uninsured individuals in Massachusetts. The funding for the grants stems from a series of multistate settlements with pharmaceutical companies that authorized Attorney General Coakley’s Office to direct settlement proceeds to benefit low-income, disabled or elderly consumers of prescription medications.
To qualify, grant recipients were required to be a qualified community health center with a 340B pharmacy, or a program that uses volunteer clinicians to provide free or significantly discounted services to low-income uninsured individuals in Massachusetts. The successful proposals submitted to the AGO last year targeted the uninsured; individuals who face gaps in Mass Health or Commonwealth Care coverage and/or are not covered by the Health Safety net; low-income individuals who are unable to afford drug co-payments; and/or any of these qualifying groups or individuals who have chronic illnesses.
The following organizations were awarded grant funding:
- Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires
- Boston Health Care for the Homeless
- Greater Lawrence Family Health Care
- Whittier Street Health Center, of Boston
- Manet Community Health Center, of Quincy
- Great Brook Valley Health Center, of Worcester
- Holyoke Health Care
- Brockton Neighborhood Health Center
- Amherst Survival Center
- Family Health Center of Worcester
- Dorchester House Multi-Service Center
- Lynn Community Health Center
- Fenway Community Health
- Greater New Bedford Community Health Center
The grant money was awarded during the week of February 9, 2009, and must be utilized by March 2, 2011.