Patient Services, Inc. to Support Patients’ Access to Treatments Act

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- Patient Services, Inc. (PSI) is pleased to support the Patients' Access to Treatments Act (PATA). This important bipartisan legislation introduced in the House of Representatives this week by Reps. David B. McKinley (R-WV) and Lois Capps (D-CA), will limit cost-sharing requirements for medications placed in a specialty tier and make innovative and necessary medications more accessible by reducing excessive out-of-pocket expenses (see also Patient Services, Inc.).

This legislation is critical because patients with rare, chronic conditions, like those that PSI serves, are increasingly facing out-of-pocket expenses that are so unaffordable they sometimes forgo taking their medication altogether causing their condition to worsen and increase costs to the medical system. PATA will ensure that our patients have affordable access to their medications and we can continue to assist them as needed.

An alarming trend in today's health insurance market is the practice of moving more expensive drugs onto specialty tiers that utilize high patient cost-sharing methods. The patient costs for drugs in specialty tiers can reach into the thousands of dollars a month, placing medically-necessary treatments out of reach of average insured Americans. For many patients, this leads to failure to adhere to a treatment plan, which can lead to worsening disease, increased rates of disability, and rising health care costs.

"Patient Services, Inc. (PSI) has helped patients with rare and expensive chronic conditions afford their health insurance premiums and co-payments for over 25 years," said Dana Kuhn, President and Founder, Patient Services, Inc. "Unfortunately, today we are extremely concerned that access to needed, and often life-saving, treatments is becoming more challenging for our patients because of rapidly increasing out-of-pocket costs. By providing our patients with manageable cost-sharing, the Patients' Access to Treatments Act (PATA) will ensure access for our patients."

PSI is one of 32 members of the Coalition for Accessible Treatments, which encourages patients and physicians to ask lawmakers to support and co-sponsor the Patients' Access to Treatments Act of 2015.

Keywords for this news article include: Health Insurance, Patient Services Inc.

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