PHOENIX — The Department of Veterans Affairs is moving to outsource care nationwide for up to 180,000 veterans who have hepatitis C, a serious blood and liver condition treated with expensive new drugs that are costing the government billions of dollars.
The VA has spent weeks developing a dramatic and controversial transition as patient loads have surged and funding has run out. Those efforts were not disclosed until records were released this week to The Arizona Republic.
Instructions on how to carry out the program show that the sickest veterans generally will get top priority for treatment. However, patients who have less than a year to live or who suffer "severe irreversible cognitive impairment" will not be eligible for treatment.
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Showing posts with label costs of treatment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label costs of treatment. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Monday, March 9, 2015
Canada: Drug cure for hep C comes with $95,000 price for Windsor man
Thirty-three years after a van-motorcycle crash put Mike North in hospital for multiple surgeries, he is suffering the devastating health effects from the hepatitis C virus that snuck into his body via blood transfusions.
The virus has attacked his liver, which is now in the most advanced stage of cirrhosis, and he needs a transplant. But before the transplant he must take a recently approved drug that should cure him of hep C, so the virus won’t attack the new liver. Harvoni boasts a cure rate higher than 95 per cent. But there’s a catch: it costs $95,000 for a 12-week treatment, and North has almost no coverage.
“If I don’t get a liver, I’m done,” said North, 62, a former manager at several local automotive plants, who has some savings (including his share of the settlement paid out to victims of Canada’s tainted blood scandal), but only enough to fund his retirement. So his family and medical staff are scrambling to find a way to get him these $1,130 pills as quickly as they can.
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The virus has attacked his liver, which is now in the most advanced stage of cirrhosis, and he needs a transplant. But before the transplant he must take a recently approved drug that should cure him of hep C, so the virus won’t attack the new liver. Harvoni boasts a cure rate higher than 95 per cent. But there’s a catch: it costs $95,000 for a 12-week treatment, and North has almost no coverage.
“If I don’t get a liver, I’m done,” said North, 62, a former manager at several local automotive plants, who has some savings (including his share of the settlement paid out to victims of Canada’s tainted blood scandal), but only enough to fund his retirement. So his family and medical staff are scrambling to find a way to get him these $1,130 pills as quickly as they can.
Read more...
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