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State Medicaid to implement change within 30 days
An influential prescription-drug review board voted Wednesday to have the state’s Medicaid program cover all drugs for hepatitis C before patients are in advanced stages of illness.
The state Department of Health plans to implement the change within 30 days. It will let Medicaid recipients in fee-for-service plans receive the same coverage that most private health insurers in New York now allow, following a settlement announced Tuesday by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
Medicaid managed care plans, however, would not immediately fall under the new policy, according to Matt Curtis, policy director for New York City-based Voices of Community Activists and Leaders.
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus that can cause chronic infection of the liver and, in the worst cases, liver failure.
An estimated 25,000 new cases occur each year in New York. Roughly 60,000 of the state’s 200,000-plus hepatitis C patients are covered by Medicaid.
Read more…http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Patient-group-presses-state-for-increased-7378967.php