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New North Dakota Law Makes Pill Chemotherapy More Affordable
May 18, 2015
North Dakota just approved a new law that ensures the pill form of chemotherapy costs cancer patients the same amount as the traditional IV version and prevents insurance companies from increasing the cost of IV treatment.
As you might imagine, not every cancer patient in North Dakota lives near a cancer center to get regular chemotherapy treatment by IV. For years cancer patients going through treatment would have to travel long distances on a daily basis or stay hundreds of miles away from home for weeks just to get chemo through an IV in a clinical setting.
Medical advancements led to the development of a pill form of chemotherapy so patients could treat their cancer without having to travel to a clinical center. However, the pill form of chemotherapy was not covered by insurance companies the same way treatment through an IV was covered. This made the pill treatment so much more expensive that many patients could not afford the pill option due to the high costs. This new law will eliminate this barrier making treatment more affordable and accessible for cancer patients in North Dakota.
North Dakota joins Mississippi, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming on having passed similar legislation this year.
Learn more about the new North Dakota law in the recently published op-ed by American Cancer Society board member, Donald Warne.
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