The Church Health Center and Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Inc. have opened a pharmacy together that will get more prescription drugs to more of the area’s uninsured population.

The Christian nonprofit groups call the new Outpatient Pharmacy a “joint ministry” and believe it will dispense as many as 400 prescriptions per day by the end of the year.

The 3,600-square-foot pharmacy, on the first floor of Methodist University Hospital, now fills about 50 prescriptions and has been reconfigured to handle the increased volume.

“The Church Health Center has, for 23 years, provided medications for our patients, and this will allow us to provide drugs for more people beyond those who come to the clinic,” said Dr. Scott Morris, founder of the Church Health Center. “A doctor can work his magic and tell a patient what the problem is, but if they are not able to afford the treatment, have you really helped them?”

The pharmacy will be staffed by CHC and Methodist staff and is a “50/50 partnership,” Morris said.

It will initially serve only existing CHC patients and Methodist outpatients and associates. But in the coming months, the pharmacy will serve Methodist Teaching Practice patients and then those on CHC’s Memphis Plan, the center’s employer-sponsored insurance plan for small businesses.

Morris said the hope is to open the pharmacy’s doors even wider to others who lack access to affordable prescriptions and possibly to new joint pharmacies with Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. and Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis.

While CHC patients will now have to leave its campus to get their drugs, they will be able to get a larger variety of drugs at the new pharmacy. Morris said the CHC often had to write prescriptions for some medications to be filled at retail pharmacies.

The pharmacy gets its drugs from many donor companies in many different ways. However, Memphis-area doctors provide it many doses through the months-old “1 in 3 for the CHC” program.

Memphis Medical Society doctors are major contributors to the program that has doctors donating about one-third of their drug samples to the Church Health Center.

“It’s an extension of trying to help the less fortunate patients that, unfortunately, not everyone can see,” said Michael Cates, MMS executive vice president. “The program makes a lot of sense for our physicians, and they all understand Dr. Morris’ mission.”

Kevin M. Spiegel, CEO of the Methodist hospital, said the new project is “an example of Methodist stepping up its donation” to CHC.

“Methodist has had a long, close relationship with the Church Health Center, so this move is a natural progression,” Spiegel said.

– Toby Sells: 529-2742

Church Health Center

Founded: 1987

Patients on record: 50,000

Average visit cost: $20

Contact: 272-7170

Online: churchhealthcenter.org

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