Golden State Today

A new “patient advocacy” organization, Patients Come First, today launched in California, announcing longtime California public affairs professional Julie Gill Shuffield as the group’s executive director.

The organization also announced that it has launched groups in Missouri and New Jersey.

The PCF website says it will “strive to put patients at the forefront of healthcare” through “advocacy, science, education, and collaboration” on issues including prescription drug payments and discounts, co-pay assistance, government drug price negotiations, and the federal 340b drug discount program, among others.

The 340b program was created in 1992 to provide discounted healthcare, including prescription drugs, to healthcare providers which, in turn, are supposed to pass the savings along to low-income patients.

Participating hospitals, however, “often extend their 340B discounts to clinics in well-off communities, where they can charge privately insured patients more than those on Medicaid,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

There are 174 California hospitals participating in that program, reported Golden State Today. 

In addition to running her own firm, Sutter Buttes Advisors, Gill Shuffield also founded Power of 100 Sutter Buttes Basin, a charitable community women's group. She was named Woman of the Year by U.S. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Fairfield) in 2019. Gill Shuffield also previously worked as director of regulatory and government affairs at AES Corporation and in external affairs for California ISO.