Dispensary Of Hope

The Dispensary of Hope is a Nashville-based mail-order pharmacy serving all of Tennessee’s eligible residents. Presently the not-for-profit organization, under the auspices of Saint Thomas Health Services, provides free prescription medicines from dispensary locations in Nashville, Murfreesboro, Knoxville and Johnson City to qualified people who do not have health insurance and who are under 200 percent of the poverty line. The mail-order pharmacy means needy patients will not have to go in person to a site that can be hundreds of miles away for medications.

The mail-order pharmacy is located in a 10,000 square-foot facility in the Metro Center area that already has the Dispensary of Hope headquarter offices. Another 20,000 square feet is available for planned expansion.

“By utilizing the mail with next day delivery, Tennessee families in need can have access to medications they may not be able to acquire otherwise,” says Scott Cornwell, managing director of the Dispensary of Hope. “This will save lives.

Funding comes from several major sources. The State of Tennessee has granted $1 million, Baptist Healing Trust has given $105,000 and Saint Thomas Health Services Foundation has provided $1 million.

"The mail-order facility helps save money a number of ways such as reducing the number of uninsured visits to emergency rooms and by reducing the handling costs for pharmaceutical companies by providing them with an easy way to dispense prescriptions to the needy,” says Jason Dinger, chairman of Saint Thomas Health Service (STHS) Ventures.

STHS Ventures, under which the Dispensary operates, provides strategic and organizational support to the organization and coordinates services to help lower cost and accelerate growth.

Most pharmaceutical companies use traditional prescription assistance programs and typically have to pay a fee including verification costs to a company up to $50 for processing each filled prescription of the uninsured. The Dispensary does all its processing in house at no charge, including verification, meaning there is no cost for the pharmaceutical company at all. 

Research shows that for every $1 dollar given in prescription, $3.65 in bad debt is saved. This is because the uninsured, by not taking their medications end up having to go to the emergency room and often end up with a hospital stay, says Dinger.

Hospitals like to see the dispensing and will partner with the Dispensary because it is in their best economic interest.

The organization plans to take its mail-order program national and can serve up to seven states from the Nashville location.

Once the pharmacy structure is completed and the mail-order facility is licensed by the state, the Dispensary expects several pharmaceutical companies to certify the pharmacy and begin sending medicines for dispersal.

Hospitals like to see the dispensing and will partner with the Dispensary because it is in their best economic interest.

This is a model that woks and we want to grow it and eventually take it nationally, Dinger says. He says he plans to take its mail-order program national using Nashville as a base. From the present location Dinger believes he can serve up to seven states.

Eventually he says by building a robust distribution model with 10 mail-order dispensing locations coordinated with free standing sites can serve the whole country and meet the national crisis of a lack of pharmaceutical access to the needy.