Transcript
“Confounds therapy of not only DVT, but any vascular disease in our area. And that is the financial aspect to it. And this affects our ability to treat these problems appropriately, first from the acquisition power of patients in that there’s new and new more anticoagulant medications that are being produced by industry that, obviously like anything else when it’s new, when you want to buy the brand new iPhone, it happens to be very pricey. And then as years go by, it decreases in price. It’s the same with medications. And there are medications that have such an enormous benefit over the traditional ones that you wish everybody could afford being on those drugs. And that’s not the case sadly. And so sometimes you have to be satisfied with plan B because that’s all the patient can afford and where this is, where insurance companies play a role. And this is actually fairly valuable.
And I apologize for my lack of knowledge on this area, but I can tell you that all I know is the frustration that I go through when you want to prescribe compression stockings, which are well-documented. They have a well-documented benefit on paper after paper, and yet the insurance company will deny it because it’s of non medical necessity. And you wonder, how is that possible? And this is a touchy topic because often enough we’re required to actually stop the console or whatever you’re doing and make a phone call, trying to justify was so justifiable to somebody who doesn’t have a medical background and trying to prove that this patient would get a benefit from paying compression stockings, paying, this type of a blood thinner. And yet this becomes a big fight. Big waiting times for whomever is going to answer the phone in the other side, to discuss with you. And then if you get somebody to have a appropriate discussion, as far as the topic that you’re discussing, and then to be able to actually reach a point where the insurance company will approve. I sadly have to tell you that in my own experience, the interactions with insurance company, having more negative than positive, in this regard.”