Yeah, my cancer meds are considered cheap at $13,000 per month. It's all a numbers racket between the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies. If I had to pay it I would have been dead last year already.
Cancer doctor here. I recently (around 1 year ago) prescribed this medication to one of my patients for multiple myeloma. I didn’t think twice about it, why would I? It’s indicated for her disease, right?
Well a few days later I was reviewing my charts and I noticed a note from a phone call between our financial aid planner and the patient. It said that patient would have the medication delivered to her address once she pays a copay of $4500. I was floored.
This very sweet old lady was on food stamps and lived in a trailer park. There was no way she’d easily afford the copay on this medication. The delivery was delayed while my office was applying for need-based grants to allow this lady to have one of the three of her chemotherapy drugs.
She ended up fracturing her hip (a complication of myeloma bone disease) before the medication came through (even after she paid some of the amount). She died in the hospital from a postoperative infection a couple weeks after her hip surgery.
Certainly hindsight is 20/20 in the above case, but our healthcare system sucks.
Che2355 on August 21st, 2021 at 12:20 UTC »
10€ in Germany
becauseIsaidsodarnit on August 21st, 2021 at 13:15 UTC »
Yeah, my cancer meds are considered cheap at $13,000 per month. It's all a numbers racket between the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies. If I had to pay it I would have been dead last year already.
FatherSpacetime on August 21st, 2021 at 14:17 UTC »
Cancer doctor here. I recently (around 1 year ago) prescribed this medication to one of my patients for multiple myeloma. I didn’t think twice about it, why would I? It’s indicated for her disease, right?
Well a few days later I was reviewing my charts and I noticed a note from a phone call between our financial aid planner and the patient. It said that patient would have the medication delivered to her address once she pays a copay of $4500. I was floored.
This very sweet old lady was on food stamps and lived in a trailer park. There was no way she’d easily afford the copay on this medication. The delivery was delayed while my office was applying for need-based grants to allow this lady to have one of the three of her chemotherapy drugs.
She ended up fracturing her hip (a complication of myeloma bone disease) before the medication came through (even after she paid some of the amount). She died in the hospital from a postoperative infection a couple weeks after her hip surgery.
Certainly hindsight is 20/20 in the above case, but our healthcare system sucks.