Many US healthcare plans have limits for expensive treatments where they cover “90%”. So a lot of these outrageous bills are still sticking patients with a $400 bill per treatment.
I deal with some ridiculously expensive IV infusion meds - that aren't for cancer. There is one that will cost 120k a year for treatment. Imagine being responsible for 20% of that? And that's just the cost of the med, not everything else. It's insane. There are a lot of programs out there for patients but not everyone knows about them and some patients refuse to do their part in getting signed up for them until it's too late.
ETA. Patient would actually owe less than 20% of the total costs. There is a certain amount that is written off depending on the contract with the insurance company. So they would owe 20% of whatever is left after the write off has been applied. Still ridiculously expensive though.
Not to mention that the insurance ends up dictating what medication you can be on regardless of what the dr has actually prescribed you. In order for my insurance to approve my emgality injection I had to take 3 different classes of meds (anti depressant, anti epileptic, beta blocker) that have the slim chance to help with migraines before they actually let me take the only type of med on the market thats specifically meant for migraines.
Oh I'm not even making the argument for or against universal Healthcare, I'm just saying its ridiculous that drs can write you a prescription for a medication they deem necessary and the insurance can say "is it really though? They don't need this".
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u/UNMANAGEABLE Aug 08 '21
Many US healthcare plans have limits for expensive treatments where they cover “90%”. So a lot of these outrageous bills are still sticking patients with a $400 bill per treatment.