Progress on Bills to Address Step Therapy
MS activist
Immediately following my diagnosis, my neurologist prescribed an oral MS disease-modifying drug that had been recently approved by the
Eventually it was so bad that I could no longer go to work, and both my doctor and I knew that I had to switch medications. Unfortunately, I had not been on an injectable medication long enough to switch to my neurologist's first choice for me, so I started another injectable medication. I am still taking that injectable drug. It has prevented a major relapse in my MS, but it has not effectively managed my disease progression."
Many people with MS -- like Sheldon -- and their healthcare providers report the negative effects that step therapy has on their health and lives. Delaying access to the right treatment means prolonging ineffective treatment which may result in increased disease activity, loss of function and irreversible progression of disability.
Substantial evidence from clinical research has demonstrated that early and ongoing treatment with a disease-modifying therapy is the best available strategy for limiting new disease activity and progression of disability in MS. Most of the medications are approved for relapsing forms of MS and have been shown to have greatest benefit early in the disease when the inflammatory process tends to be most active.
Each person with MS must work with his/her healthcare provider to choose a treatment that will best meet current needs, and then discuss changing to another option if the goals of treatment are not being met. Change from one disease-modifying therapy to another should only occur for medically appropriate reasons as determined by a treating clinician and patient.
Step-therapy protocols must be reasonable and transparent.
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