Should palliative care be covered by insurance?
Posted on Sep 22, 2009 under Insurance Information |What do you think can be done to change our current health care delivery system to better meet the needs of dying patients and their families?
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Insurance Information
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:28 am
Isn’t it just crazy that palliative care isn’t covered? I would think that it would be, just because of the cost of hospitalization and long term care. I’m not sure that it will ever change if it is not already covered. Palliative meds sometimes have to be trade name to have the desired effect (which costs more). For example Ativan. Most pharmacies give generic lorazepam. However, when a patient gets old enough and can no longer swallow, they must take this med sublingual. Only the trade name version of this can be taken this way. Trade name=more expensive than generic. Imagine all the other medicines needed for bodily functions and the patient’s inability to control them: saliva secretion, anxiety, constipation, pain. All the things we take for granted. This doesn’t include the increasing need for nursing care (direct for meds, treatments, etc). Sad.
You can look into Home Social Services and see if you qualify for a few hours a week to cover these things, but it is never enough.
We do need to do something. I think the best way would be to somehow get the local congressman to write a bill to add palliative care- it would have to go political, and I’m not just savvy enough to know just exactly how to get the ball rolling.