Community Leaders Call For End To Hepatitis C Treatment Access Crisis

Telemedicine Consult - Dr. Gish

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WHO:

Dr. Gish is a Hepatologist specializing in all forms of liver disease, liver cancer and liver transplant. Dr. Gish has partnered with TeleMed2U to provide telemedicine consultative services for patients with liver disease.

WHAT:

TeleMed2U is a telemedicine-based multi-specialty clinical practice increasing access to specialist providers providing, “healthcare anywhere and everywhere.” The telemedicine consultation will be conducted through our HIPAA and HITECH compliant platform. Connectivity testing will be done in advance to ensure you can connect via our telemedicine platform. Following the consultation, a clinical note will be provided including a summary of your liver consultation with Dr. Gish and his consultative recommendations.

COST:

Payment will be processed through an online secure transaction portal. The fees for consultative services are:

Initial 60 minute consultation per patient: $500.00
Follow Up 30 minute consultation per patient: $300.00

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If you’d like to continue, please click Next to complete the form and we will contact you to schedule connectivity testing. During the test you will have the opportunity to determine the method of providing medical records, discuss appointment availability as well as discuss any additional questions that you have. If you are a healthcare facility interested in services, please complete the form and we can discuss the options that are right for you and your patients.

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Community Leaders Call For End To Hepatitis C Treatment Access Crisis

Sep 10, 2014

Urge HHS Secretary Burwell to ensure lifesaving treatment is available for everyone living with the chronic, infectious, life-threatening disease.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | September 10, 2014

Contact:

Ryan Clary, National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable, rclary@nvhr.org, (415) 235-8593

Emalie Huriaux, Project Inform, ehuriaux@projectinform.org, (510) 469-7941

A coalition of leading hepatitis C advocacy organizations and medical experts today called on Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to take leadership in eliminating harmful and discriminatory barriers to hepatitis C treatment access. The coalition sent a letter expressing alarm over restrictions placed by many public and private payers on access to new effective hepatitis C treatments that have high cure rates and minimal side effects. The coalition also sent a statement signed by over 700 organizations, individuals, and medical providers demanding availability of treatment for everyone living with hepatitis C and calling on all stakeholders, including government, the pharmaceutical industry, and public and private payers to work together on solutions.

“The recent FDA approval of highly effective new treatments brought tremendous hope to the millions of Americans estimated to have chronic hepatitis C,” said Ryan Clary, Executive Director of the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHR). “However, that hope quickly diminished when public and private payers, including many state Medicaid programs, implemented restrictions that provide access only to the sickest patients and deny access to those with active or recent substance use issues. These barriers undermine the purpose of the Affordable Care Act both to provide quality affordable health care to people regardless of pre-existing conditions and also to eliminate health disparities.”

Advocates are particularly alarmed by restricted treatment access in many state Medicaids, the safety net health program for low-income Americans. The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School is currently researching state Medicaid polices with respect to accessing these new treatments. Looking specifically at fee for service programs, preliminary analysis indicates that many states are now limiting treatment to individuals with severe liver damage (those with a metavir score of F3 or F4) and are also requiring significant periods of sobriety, usually between 3-6 months, in order to be treatment eligible.

These restrictions contradict recommendations in a recent article published in Antiviral Research by Dr. Brian Edlin and colleague Emily Winkelstein of Weill Cornell Medical College and the National Development and Research Institutes, in which they make the case for achieving hepatitis C eradication in the United States– an achievable goal, but one facing serious challenges. Care and treatment is a critical piece of the six-part strategy outlined by Dr. Edlin, which stresses the need to also enhance and scale up surveillance and epidemiology, prevention, testing, social policy, and research. Such a comprehensive plan can only be realized with solid political will adequate investment, and robust advocacy.

“At this watershed moment in the epidemic, just at the moment that we have the tools to eradicate this scourge, it would be a perverse and shameful indictment of our healthcare system if the structure of medication financing in our country were to foil our ability to use them, said Dr. Edlin. “Affordable pricing will assure the largest possible market for the drugs, a win-win arrangement. Government, industry, and payers must work together to reach agreements to assure full access to antiviral drugs for all who need them.”

Advocates will continue to call on all stakeholders to develop collaborative solutions to end the hepatitis C treatment access crisis. “Everyone living with hepatitis C deserves lifesaving treatment,” said Emalie Huriaux, Director of Federal and State Affairs at Project Inform. “Treatment decisions should be made by people with hepatitis C and their doctors, not by insurance companies. The only way we will end the hepatitis C epidemic in the United States is by assuring access to the cure to everyone.”

The letter to Secretary Burwell was signed by the following organizations and medical providers:

Caring Ambassadors Program, Inc.

Global Liver Institute

Harm Reduction Coalition

Hepatitis Education Project

Hepatitis C Mentor & Support Group, Inc.

National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors

National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable

Project Inform

Treatment Access Expansion Project

Brian R, Edlin, MD, FACP, FIDSA

Associate Professor of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY

Camilla Graham, MD

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Robert Gish, MD

Vice Chair

National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable

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