Every year, emergency physicians provide care more than 120 million times. Sometimes, that care saves a life, prevents paralysis, or diagnoses a major medical condition.

And many times, that care includes sound advice and honest counsel.

“For many of us, the most important advice we often give is telling a patient to be sure to take the medications as prescribed,” said Dr. Ramon W. Johnson, Chair of the American College of Emergency Physicians Foundation. “But we know that for millions of patients, even just filling a prescription is no simple matter, especially if they are uninsured, unemployed, or on a fixed income.”

The ACEP Foundation wants to help make sure emergency department patients know that help is available. The Foundation has been working with Pfizer to raise awareness of its prescription assistance programs.

Pfizer supports uninsured and underinsured patients through Pfizer Helpful Answers, a family of patient assistance programs that helps Americans without prescription coverage get Pfizer medications, no matter their age or income.

Pfizer has been running patient assistance programs for more than 20 years, and Pfizer Helpful Answers is the largest and most extensive set of patient assistance programs in the United States.

Recently, Pfizer added the MAINTAIN program, which helps newly unemployed Americans without prescription coverage—and in financial need—continue to get Pfizer medications free of charge for up to 12 months.

“At Pfizer, we are committed to helping patients in need get access to our medicines,” said Gary Pelletier, director of Pfizer Helpful Answers.

“The Pfizer Maintain program is the latest example of how we continue to develop innovative programs to meet the changing needs of patients,” he noted.

“In the last 5 years alone, we are pleased that we were able to help more than 5 million patients receive more than 51 million Pfizer prescriptions for free or at a savings,” Mr. Pelletier added.

Pfizer Helpful Answers is also part of a nationwide effort sponsored by America’s pharmaceutical research companies called the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA). PPA helps low-income, uninsured, and underinsured patients.

More information on PPA can be found at www.PPARx.org.

The ACEP Foundation has been a proud supporter of PPA for more than 3 years.