by Kerry Thomas
April 11, 2008
If I told you how you could save $122,000, would you be
interested?
Your government-run health care system, under the Medicare
program, is willing to spend $126,000 to care for a patient in a nursing home
for six weeks while she receives infusion therapy for treatment of bacterial
endocarditis. Yet this same
government-run health care system will not pay the $4,000 medical bill if this
same patient chooses to stay in her home and undergo the same medical procedure
at home.
That’s right.
Medicare will pay $126,000 for her to go into a nursing home for the
treatment, but will not pay $4,000 to keep her at home and receive the same
treatment.
It’s your money. And
in this case, there is something you can do about it.
Representative Elliot
Engel (D-NY) has introduced H.R.2567, the
Medicare Home Infusion Therapy Coverage Act of 2007, which will amend title
XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for the coverage of home infusion
therapy under the Medicare Program.
This bill currently has 43 co-sponsors.
The Senate version of this legislation is S.870,
introduced by Senator Johnny Isakson
(R-GA). To date, no other Senators have
signed on as co-sponsors.
This bill is a straightforward proposal,
without all the little “extras” that seem to attach themselves to so much
legislation in Washington. It’s barely
2 pages long.
If you’d like to save yourself $122,000 per
patient, do what I did this morning. Contact
your Congressman and Senators and tell them to support
this legislation.
It’s your money.