Kristen Filczer is spearheading the Meds-to-Beds program at Cox Medical Center Branson.

Kristen Filczer is spearheading the Meds-to-Beds program at Cox Medical Center Branson.

Cox Medical Center Branson has launched a program aimed at helping patients leaving the hospital make a smoother transition to their at-home care.

“Meds-to-Beds” is a program which brings patients, who are about to be discharged, prescriptions needed for the immediate future so a patient doesn’t have to go from the hospital to stand in line at a community pharmacy.

“When a patient is about to be discharged, the last thing they want to do is stand in a line at the pharmacy,” Cox Branson Pharmacy Tech Kristen Filczer said. “Their faces light up when I come into the room with their prescriptions. It means they’re about to go home!”

Fliczer helped start the program with Danielle Nagel, the Retail Pharmacy Operations Manager at the hospital.

“Sometimes a patient will skip picking up a prescription because they don’t want the hassle of getting it, they don’t think they need it or they cannot afford it,” Nagel said. “This program allows us to get the right dose, the right formulation, into the right hands. Taking their proper medications helps prevent the patients from being readmitted to the hospital for skipping prescriptions.”

The pair also understand many patients are concerned about the costs of prescriptions, and they work with doctors to make sure the most affordable medication options are made available. Work is put in behind the scenes before a patient gets a prescription to make sure the best option is being used in a situation.

“We want to make sure they know about prescription savings cards and other avenues to save money,” CoxHealth Director of Pharmacy Ryan Baker said. “We work closely with insurance companies and can sometimes even cut a patient’s copay in half. We want them to know all of their options because we don’t want them going without their medications.”

Baker says Meds-to-Beds is another way the cooperation between departments at the hospital benefits patients.

“This is such a great display of retail pharmacy working with the inpatient team,” he said. “The inpatient side gets to know the patients while they’re with us. They communicate to the retail side, so patients get medications from trained experts familiar with them and their needs.”

Nagel added she feels the program wouldn’t be successful without the cooperation of all the different departments at the hospital.

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