[beatle]

Patients who for years have taken medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration to relieve their diabetic peripheral neuropathy are now being forced by their insurers to fail first on outdated drug regimens which aren’t even FDA-approved to treat their condition.

http://m.northwestgeorgianews.com/ro....html?mode=jqm

Also known as "step" and "tier" programs designed to get everyone on the same cheap (and many outdated) drugs and routinely deny coverage of more commonly prescribed drugs just to save the company money.

[mrsD]

Yes, they do this now commonly.

The Tier function has been around for about a decade now on many drug therapies.
It also has been in place for blood pressure medications, and I would expect it to be in place for the biological treatments like IVIG, Humira, etc.

[beatle]

I understand insurance companies and their partners want to save money by recommending cheap if not dated alternatives but their multiple tier programs keep many helpful drugs out of reach for patients thereby compromising quality care.

[Marlene]

So True.........This happened to John when he was in the hospital for treatment for his bone marrow failure. They had to use an older IV anti-fungal which was very hard on the kidneys. They would not allow them to give him the newer formulation that was easier on him until they could show harm from the older medicine. He was so compromised from everything going on and they would not authorize a better, less damaging medicine until his kidneys were effected.

[Diandra]

Originally Posted by beatle

Patients who for years have taken medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration to relieve their diabetic peripheral neuropathy are now being forced by their insurers to fail first on outdated drug regimens which aren’t even FDA-approved to treat their condition.

http://m.northwestgeorgianews.com/ro....html?mode=jqm

Also known as "step" and "tier" programs designed to get everyone on the same cheap (and many outdated) drugs and routinely deny coverage of more commonly prescribed drugs just to save the company money.

Beatle...thanks for posting the article.

It is truly criminal that the insurance companies can get away with it.
Our legislators don't care because they have their own health care insurance.

Best thing we can do, especially with elections next year....send the article to your local politicians and tell them it is not fair and to fix it...if enough people do it, it may make a difference. We need to put our cynicism and frustrations with our legislators aside for a day and try it. If every American who sees this post contacted their officials, it may make a dent.

Click on this to find your politician, just enter zip and in 2 seconds you can email them the article.

https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup

Thanks, D.

[beatle]

Thanks Diandra!

My company's insurance plan is through United Healthcare. They, like many insurance companies have had a tier system in place for years but theirs is now a 3-tier system (through their horrible partner, OptumRx) containing most brands. They force patients to first try three drugs solely due to their low cost and even then will frequently deny coverage, making it as hard as possible on the patient and prescribing physician. In my case, my doctor called, wrote letters, as have I to explain that I am sensitive to medications and cannot tolerate most due to side effects. They do not care.

I think your suggestion is good, to contact our lawmakers and our company's administrator is shopping plans right now so we can switch to one that covers prescriptions as written.

[Jomar]

Well, I look at it this way, the older drugs have more long term use & info behind them, while the newer ones may have issues after long term.. this is just what is learned over time .. so it actually might be a good thing..

Newer is not always better..

[beatle]

Newer is definitely not always better but I have tried newer, older and in between and hydrocodone ER works best for me with the fewest side effects.

[janieg]

And of course Big Pharma has a vested interest in wanting to convince us that the newer drugs are better, even when making just minute changes to the old so the patent expiration no longer applies.

I'd always opt for an older and well-tested med before trying a new one...both from a cost and safety standpoint.

That's not to say that some newer meds aren't better and lifesavers, though.

[beatle]

I too would prefer to lean towards an older med but after pretty much trying everything, I've had the best results with this drug (which happens to be on the newer list) and the side effects are tolerable.