National Bill to get Insurance Companies to cover Lyme Disease

That would be nice. I'm not sure about Lyme organizations pursuing this the only thing I do know is that President Trump's ex wife has a battle with Lyme. So I hope his youngest daughter talks to dad and pushes for something along these lines.

If anyone finds a Lyme organization that is helping to get this done on a national level, please do let us know. I've tried finding one that was actually doing the right thing -without padding their own pockets or ego, or pushing the wrong information to no avail - and at this point, I've become quite disillusioned with the larger National groups.

That's good to know, those case wins help others down the road!

it's too bad we don't have a good, strong association that really promotes a) legislation b) medical research

Time to start one?

I'm guessing maybe five states have this already- and it help$ somewhat, but not entirely.

This is what happens in those states: Problem is in the wording and conventional medicine vs functional or natural path medicine. The last two are usually used somewhat is treating lyme and are not true medicine in the insurance companies eyes. They only cover "conventional medicine" which has limitations in sucessful treatment. Coverage is that way with any illness, not just lyme.

So if your Dr Rxs' ABX, that might be covered, but not the Drs visit time if he/she also uses or mentions natural therapies in the Dr visit insurance notes. But since ABX is costly, it will still help $ if you have Rx coverage, but you might still pay the clinic visit. Thats why most natural path Drs dont even bother with insurance, because they get denied every time.

Post Edited (astroman) : 4/7/2017 11:46:40 AM (GMT-6)

Add Minnesota (maybe the first one 6-7 years ago?) and Georgia (maybe ?) to that list.

But, you still pay unless treated only with abx (sometimes only for the cdc recommended time OR)- you get a lawyer involved. Herbs and such will never be cover- or the Drs time if involved with that.

Post Edited (astroman) : 4/7/2017 7:55:35 PM (GMT-6)

1000Daisies - thats pretty good coverage with the ND.

The laws differ state to state on if ND's can Rx or not, so that might possibly influence the insurance coverage or not.

I would imagine ND's in states that can Rx would be viewed more like a regular Dr per insurance, then covered.

To bump this thread...anyone have luck getting insurance companies to pay for some (or all) treatments???

I just now after 50 years on this planet have some type of health insurance (vision, dental, medical)

it's somewhat comprehensive but I'm paying for it out of pocket, hoping to at least get my teeth cleaned/x-rayed/examined, vision checkup, and medical exam...

I've lived in Massachusetts for 19 years, and neither I nor anyone else I know with chronic tick-borne disease has had their treatment covered by insurance. The best you can hope for is a crafty LLMD who will code your tests and prescriptions as something else in order to get them covered. I need to look up what happened with the bill referenced in the article in the initial post!

magoo2 said...
Sorry to say but since there is no pharma cure there will be no pressure on congress to make happen-quite the opposite. Our system rewards life long meds not health-sorry to say

i think there is some truth in this - in terms of the economic model incentivising lifelong medication

while there is certainly no instant cure - fortunately i think the illness can be successfully treated with a combination of cheap off-patent medications - in combination with general health supporting steps - like managing sleep, pain, diet, stress etc - its just a long process.

my personal opinion is that the key issue to be resolved to solve the issue of lack of medical care is accurate testing

if truly accurate tests are available that are say 99% sensitive and specific - like we have for the vast majority of other infectious diseases - then there is no longer any debate about who has it or not - or symptoms being in peoples heads - or misdiagnosed as CFS, FM, MS, Psychosis etc etc

if we have a 99% accurate test - then the true scale of the issue rapidly becomes clear and it just becomes another infectious disease that needs to be treated.

i do think the insurance companies are very likely lobbying to prevent or delay this from happening - influencing medical policy makers, editorial content selections in journals and funding research that muddies the waters etc - as the sums of money involved are truly huge - and their profits will take a big hit
but a true validated 99% accurate test would be very hard to get around.

the problem i see is we would need that for, at the very least, bart, babs and lyme - and we would need scientific consensus that its valid - while those with perverse incentives continue to try to work to muddy the waters.