Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Vanderbilt graduate student needs insurance okay for cancer care

UPDATE: The insurance company decided to cover him. Hooray!

This situation with a Vanderbilt chemistry graduate student seems bad (emphasis mine):
The standard drugs used for AML will not be sufficient in my case. Fortunately, there is a drug in a Vanderbilt clinical trial that is available (called midostaurin) that has been shown to help patients with my particular mutation to achieve remission. However, moving forward, the Vanderbilt insurance company for graduate students has decided that they will not pay for ANY care (hospital stay and standard care) associated with this clinical trial. 
To be clear, the clinical trial is funded by a pharmaceutical company and does not need to be covered by the insurance company. The insurance company solely has to pay for the ROUTINE STANDARD care that goes along with the clinical trial.
More details here. Best wishes to Mr. Kantor.

UPDATE: The insurance company decided to cover him. Hooray!

4 comments:

  1. It looks as if the insurance company changed its mind:
    https://twitter.com/Keerstennnn/status/831535475303313408

    ReplyDelete
  2. its very troubling to me, although not shocking, that such a situation could even come to be.
    Its not like he was asking for hairplugs and a face-lift...
    I am glad to hear the insurance company caved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shame that it even took a "social media firestorm". It shouldn't have to be like pulling nails from a lion and teeth from a great white to ask about, and receive, medical coverage.

      Delete

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20