There's no billing code for a ride to the doctor.
Greater Philadelphia Health Action pays for it with 340B pharmacy savings. Here’s what that looks like for one patient.
GPHA is a federally qualified health center that has served Philadelphia for 57 years. Savings from its pharmacy, run by NuvemRx, pay for patient transportation, translation services, and free home delivery of prescriptions. None of those has a billing code. HRSA calls them enabling services.
Press play below to see what that looks like for one person.
GPHA is a federally qualified health center that has served Philadelphia for 57 years. Savings from its pharmacy, run by NuvemRx, pay for patient transportation, translation services, and free home delivery of prescriptions. None of those has a billing code. HRSA calls them enabling services. Press play below to see what that looks like for one person.
The ride
After Tracey Adams lost her husband, she lost her way to the doctor. No car. Couldn’t walk it. She needed to be seen and she couldn’t get there, and there is no line on any claim form for that.
The front desk at GPHA got her a voucher. Called the cab. She made her appointments again. While she’s in the room, her doctor writes the prescription, it goes to the pharmacy downstairs, and it’s waiting for her on the way out.
Somebody paid for that ride. The film is about who.
Pharmacy pays for it
Most of what keeps a patient alive at a community health center has no billing code. The ride. The translator on the phone. The prescription delivered to a front door.
GPHA pays for those out of its pharmacy. Savings from the 340B program flow through the pharmacy, and GPHA turns them into services no grant and no payer will cover.
Dr. Janet Young, GPHA’s chief medical officer, says it plainly in the film: 340B supports the services they can’t bill for, and there are many.
The thread
Across the country, about 30% of patients never pick up their prescription. At GPHA, about 9 in 10 leave with theirs, because it’s filled on the way out the door or delivered at no charge.
GPHA CEO Brian Clark says the line the whole thing turns on. “340B is absolutely the thread that is holding health centers together.”
He’s talking about the program, but he’s also describing the people. We’re going to follow that thread, from the pharmacy counter out into the neighborhoods it reaches, and introduce you to the people holding it.