Prescription assistance bus rolls through Southeast Missouri

The Partnership for Prescription Assistance bus will be traveling through Missouri this week.

According to its Web site, www.pparx.org, Partnership for Prescription Assistance has helped connect nearly 4 million people to patient assistance programs that provide free or nearly free prescriptions since its inception in 2005. The PPA provides a single point of access to nearly 475 patient assistance programs, including more than 180 programs offered by pharmaceutical companies.

The PPA has two outreach buses that travel in all 50 states and more than 1,200 cities to educate low-income, uninsured and underinsured patients about drug assistance programs. The PPA can help patients contact government programs like Medicare and Medicaid and assists Medicare beneficiaries with information about the Medicare prescription drug program.

More than 1,300 state, national and local organizations, like the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Cancer Society and the United Way, as well as doctors and pharmacists, have joined forces with the PPA.

The bus will be in Southeast Missouri beginning Wednesday, when it travels through Park Hills and Perryville. It will be at the Perry Park Center, 800 City Park Drive in Perryville, from 1:30 to 3 p.m.

On Thursday the bus will stop from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Salvation Army, 701 Good Hope St. in Cape Girardeau, and from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 1307 N. Main St. in Sikeston.

The bus will stop from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday at the Greater Poplar Bluff Chamber of Commerce, 1111 W. Pine St. in Poplar Bluff, and will end its Missouri trip with a stop from 1:30 to 3 p.m. a the First Baptist Church at 300 S. Francis St. in Kennett.

jsamons@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245