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Welcome to “Paying it Forward,” a monthly interview series made possible by Piedmont Health. In this series, we hear from the folks at Piedmont about the importance of community health centers – and why they chose a career in community health.
This month, Aaron welcomes Kelly Stout, a native North Carolinian and UNC grad who now serves as Piedmont’s chief pharmacy officer.
“I’ve been with Piedmont Health for 23 years,” she says. “Many of my family and friends are patients at Piedmont, myself included – so it was a source of pride to be able to come back and take care of them every day.”
Working with patients every day offers the opportunity to improve people’s lives on a regular basis. Stout says some of her most memorable success stories involve patients struggling with diabetes.
“Insulin has grown to be so expensive that people were making a really difficult financial choice: ‘do I have insulin for my diabetes or groceries for my family this week?’” she says. “At Piedmont, we’re able to make patients able to receive their medications regardless of their ability to pay, so they can take care of their health and their families.”
Stout says the field has changed a lot in the last 23 years – often for the better, as Piedmont can now serve more residents than it could before.
“We (were) very limited” at first, she says. “We really only serviced patients who were uninsured – (but) when the inception of Medicare Part D in 2006 occurred, we realized to be sustainable in this market, we had to start thinking a little differently. So we opened up our formulary (and) signed up to take insurance. So we take Medicare, Medicaid, (and) private insurance now – and of course, we still take care of our uninsured.”
And since Stout’s work is so heavily influenced by U.S. health care law, it’s no surprise that she’s also turned into something of a lobbyist, in addition to her direct work with patients.
“In the last three years, I’ve made more trips to DC than I’d made in the rest of my life,” she says with a laugh. “Advocating on Capitol Hill is very important.”
Specifically, Stout has pushed for federal support for the 340B drug pricing program, which “requires drug manufacturers that participate in Medicaid to offer pricing to us at a significantly reduced rate.” That advocacy work is ongoing – she’s heading back to DC in early December, in fact – and she says she’s hopeful the landscape won’t change, even amidst an ever-changing political climate.
“We’ve had strong bipartisan support for community health centers and the 340B program over the years,” she says, “and we hope to continue that going forward, so we can keep doing the very important work we do at taking care of our patients.”
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