It has finally hit home. I haven’t done the PAPS lately since I have been using the Giant Eagle Program for my scripts but I have been following the growing trend of those going after the PAPS. The Economic circumstances are leaving a lot of people in dire straits, more and more people are loosing their insurance coverage and it is putting a strain to the whole system.

While everyone is doing their part in helping, those of us who use PAPS regularly know that it is a common requirement for a doctor to fill out a part of the application.
I had somewhat of an idea after talking to a lot of people while researching the book that doctor’s were feeling the burden of increased application requests. It is natural to expect our doctor’s to help us since we have no choice on the rules. We need help and it is sometimes unfathomable that those who are supposed to sometimes cant do it.

I was talking to my doctor today and I was actually shocked to learn that he is not doing PAP applications anymore. When I prodded, since he knows what I do with this blog, he showed me a stack of what must have been about 200 applications or so and he almost sadly told me that he just could not handle it anymore. Those were only from a couple a few weeks and as much as his staff was trying to stay ahead of them, they just could not do it without diminishing their standard of care. I could see he was over extended trying to do what came naturally to him as a doctor and that is to help people but he had reached a point where he could not do his job effectively and was spread too thin, so he had to make the tough choice to stop taking the PAPS even if it wasnt the most popular decision. He expected to catch some flack for it and matter of fact he had lost a few patients who just couldnt survive without the free medicines that PAPS provide.

When I was doing research for the book, I got an email from a lady who said that her doctor had actually decided to charge for doing the PAPS his rationale was that he had to hire an extra person to handle them when he really couldnt afford one so the cost was passed on to the patient.

While I for one understand the reasoning behind some of the thinking that those physicians, who are also taking a hit from the economical downturn are being forced to make. Many of the people these programs are supposed to help are by definitions, ones who cannot afford to pay for the medicines and having to charge them for the logistics is just not fair and defeats the purpose.

Has your doctor decided to cancel this service or is charging for it?