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What is the Urgent Rx Prescription Program?

Urgent Rx Prescription Voucher ProgramUrgent Rx Prescription Program

Thank you to the following community partners:

Brooks Family Foundation
Cayuga Medical Center
Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County
Ithaca Free Clinic
Kinney Drugs, Inc.
United Way of Tompkins County
Wegmans 

 

Urgent Rx provides free prescriptions and outreach follow-up to people without insurance who have an urgent health need and receive care at selected sites. Uninsured patients treated at the Cayuga Medical Center Emergency Department, Inpatient Unit Discharge and Convenient Care Center in Ithaca and at the Ithaca Free Clinic receive vouchers for prescription medicine. This enables patients to complete the recommended treatment plans for their urgent medical problems, having a direct impact on their recovery and their health.

Urgent Rx covers a limited supply (up to two weeks) of urgently needed medicines. The program covers a limited number of generic-brand medications used to treat common, urgent health-care problems. (It does not cover long-term prescription medication needs.)

Urgent Rx Users
(all years of program)

  • 73% of Urgent Rx recipients
         have been one-time users
  • 16% have used the program
          twice
  • 5% three times
  • 6% more than three times
  • 45% of total clients are
          between 19-30 years old
  • 80% of Urgent Rx clients were
          from Tompkins County
  • 18% of Urgent Rx clients were
          from bordering counties
  • 1% were from other NYS
          counties
  • 1% were from out of sta


From January 2006 to December 2009, the Urgent Rx Prescription Program provided 8,810 prescriptions at the cost of $161,144. This saved individuals using the program $209,487.

“I am so appreciative that this program was there. I had pneumonia, and needed prescriptions right away that would have cost me over $100. I did not have the money and would not have been able to get that medicine.”








Thank you for supporting United Way of Tompkins County, its 43 member organizations, and more than 150 year-round health and human service programs, in addition to its two targeted impact areas of care: Hunger & Food Security and Urgent Rx Prescription Program. For more information contact United Way of Tompkins County at (607) 272-6286 or email Meg Cole.

Reports

2009 - from the Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County

2008 - from United Way of Tompkins County