Does the American healthcare system have your best interest? I say no, it does not. I think the American health care system is simply a disease management system. There is so much money made in disease management why cure anything? For instance Jenn uses Copaxone for her MS. Without insurance the cost for a one month supply of Copaxone is $3,297!!! That's $39,564 per year with a crushing $108.39 a day! There are not many people who can pay that kind of out of pocket cost. From the business side of this I understand there is research and development, trials, licenses and so on that costs a lot to bring it to market. But $3,297 a month? With that being said.....most (if not all of them) do have financial assistance programs if you need it. Below is list of some of the most common MS treatment drugs and their financial assistance program:.
- Copaxone:://www.copaxone.com/shared-solutions/copaxone-co-pay
- Avonex: http://www.avonex.com/avonex-cost-financial-services.xml
- Rebif: http://www.rebif.com/pages/affordable-access/patient_assistance_program
- Tysabri: http://www.tysabri.com/tysabri-cost-and-support.xml
- Betaseron: https://www.betaseron.com/betaplus/affordability
Don't get me wrong.....doctors and medicine are absolutely necessary and can be a great thing. There are a lot of fantastic doctors who really want the best for their patients. The problem can be the system itself. Let me ask you this....how long do you wait in the lobby to see you neurologist? When Jenn was going to her first neurologist (who we both like) we waited up to 3 hours after the scheduled appointment time. And we were stuck because the wait time to get another appointment was normally months. We finally made the discovery that he triple booked his appointments. Our work around was to call a couple hours ahead and ask how far behind he was and go in later. Once we got in to see him it seemed like just seconds and he was off to the next patient. This is how it works. Almost every clinic gives their doctors 7 minutes with regular patients. Intake appointments are much longer and the doctor most often schedules full days of intake appointments. To make sure we got the most out of our appointments I would right down questions we had and if there where forms he needed to sign I would fill in everything for him except his signature. Otherwise we had to leave it there to be completed at a later time.........a much later time most often. It wasn't ideal but it worked.
The other portion of the healthcare system is pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceutical companies have armies of lobbyists. The pharmaceutical industry spends the most each year to influence our lawmakers, forking over a total of $2.6 billion on lobbying activities from 1998 through 2012. That is by far the most of all lobbyists. To get some perspective on just how big that number is, consider that oil and gas companies and their trade associations spent $1.4 billion lobbying Congress over the same time frame while the defense and aerospace industry spent $662 million. Now you see why there is a prescription for everything. These companies make mega money off of people being sick.
Here's the real danger in it. You can be over medicated very quickly. We found this out first hand. When's Jenn's health was really down she ended up with a pharmacy in our cupboard. She had pills for tremors, fatigue, vertigo, sleep aid and so on. Every neurology appointment we left with a fistful of prescriptions. Jenn topped out at 14 different medicines a day. One night while having dinner I looked across the table at her and realized her eyes were ridiculously glossy and she looked dazed. I asked her how she was feeling and she said "ok, I guess....I just feel pretty numb". Right then it really hit home how over medicated she was. We took out all of her prescriptions and reviewed them. Holly crap! The side effects all counteracted one another. The one to treat vertigo makes you tired and the one to treat fatigue makes you dizzy and so on. It was shocking. Our mistake was assuming the doctor was aware of the side effects of each one and would prescribe ones that played well with the others. Not the case at all. That night we flushed everything down the toilet and just kept the Copaxone. After the drugs left her system she was feeling a ton better. Do yourself a huge favor and really analyze any prescriptions to prevent over medicating yourself and doing you more harm than good. More meds does not equal better quality of life.
Pharmaceuticals are needed and they are a good thing. You dictate how you treat your MS and let your doctor know what and how you are doing and they should provide care that compliments what you are doing. Take charge of your MS treatment and know everything you are taking!
Next post: The National MS Society is your friend.
Thanks for reading.
-Brent
Reject Defeat
Thanks for reading.
-Brent
Reject Defeat
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