Mission:
To provide information on medication access options for providers and patients with limited resources.

Background:
RxAssist was established in 1997 with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by Volunteers in Health Care, a national resource center for safety-net organizations that operates out of the Brown University Center for Primary Care and Prevention, part of Brown Medical School. Created as a service to help manage the application process for the pharmaceutical industry's patient-assistance programs (PAPs), RxAssist was the first Web site to make application forms available online.

Outstanding Web Features:
The RxAssist Web site is two-pronged, with one section for healthcare providers and the other for patients. The patient center contains frequently asked questions about PAPs, drug discount cards, and RxAssist; medication-access resources; and programs offering free or low-cost health care. The provider center contains resources such as Medicare information, PAP materials, how-to guides, field reports on starting a PAP, information on the RxOutreach program for low-income families, and recent news. Both providers and patients may register for free to access the site's database of patient assistance programs, searchable by generic or brand drug name or the name of the pharmaceutical company. The RxAssist Web site contains extensive information, making its site map an especially valuable tool to help users avoid overlooking important facts.