Hi guys,
As you all know, I live with a Chronic illness called Crohn’s Disease. Crohn’s is an Inflammatory Bowel Disease and IBD currently effects 1.3% of the American population—roughly 3 million people.
Part of managing this disease is medication. I am currently on Humira which is a biweekly injection to help suppress my immune system to help with the inflammation in my body. And so far, it’s worked. I still have bad days, but everyone does.
However, before my insurance would pay for this medication I was required to be on a drug that was not even FDA approved to treat Crohn’s disease and had shown in a number of studies to be ineffective in the treatment of the disease when used as a mono therapy. This is called Step Therapy and a number of IBD patients experience this. Insurance will oftentimes require us to “fail” an insurer-preferred drug (use it for x amount of time and then see how we feel—spoiler it usually doesn’t work) before they will pay for the drug that our healthcare provider has requested.
But this Step Therapy can be dangerous. It can lead to disease flares, under management of a disease and in some cases, total colectomies (removal of the colon).
So, I just want to ask a simple favor. Please sign the petition in the link below regarding step therapy. What the Crohn’s and Colitis foundation is trying to do is pass The Safe Step Act and make step therapy more transparent. Right now, it’s incredibly opaque and we get varying vague answers from insurance. This bill, if passed would allow patients, if deemed necessary by their provider to completely skip step therapy so that they can be started on the drug they need. This medication for some people can literally be life saving. And, after you sign, if you wouldn’t mind sharing this wherever with whomever so that they can get as many signatures as possible.
Thank you, from myself and the rest of the IBD community. ❤️
http://www.votervoice.net/Shares/BAAAAAF3AEAiAAZKsUW7FAA
Our Action Center | Crohn's & Colitis Foundation
