A Washington, D.C., nonprofit foundation has collaborated with a Millersville app developer to help eligible patients, caregivers and providers find financial assistance for out-of-pocket medical costs. The Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation brought in Summit Business Technologies, a company experienced in developing custom and complex apps that do not conform to off-the-shelf solutions.
The PAN Foundation FundFinder provides a critical safety net to patients with life-threatening, chronic and rare diseases. Until now, there has been no mechanism to inform patients when a new fund opens or an existing fund is depleted. Patients and caregivers have had to manually monitor the PAN Foundation website and those of seven other patient assistance organizations to find and track hundreds of disease-specific programs.
The FundFinder is the first free web-based application to help simplify the search for financial assistance for this patient population. Users are instantly notified by email or text message when a disease program they follow opens, eliminating the need to manually monitor each of the eight websites.
The PAN Foundation reported that one email prior to launch generated 1,000 registrations on Day 1; to date, there have been more than 9,000 registrations.