You may know an organ transplant recipient. You may have a family member who is a recipient or on a waiting list. If you do, you know that drug costs can be financially stratospheric.
Anti-rejection drugs like Cyclosporine must be taken in large amounts for the rest of an organ recipient's life. Since the market for such drugs is small, they are known as 'orphan drugs' and are very expensive even if you have good insurance coverage.
It is absolutely essential that a patients not miss their anti rejection drug doses or, due to financial distress, try to stretch the amount of the dosage prescribed by their doctors.
The body's immune system will reject the organ as a foreign object if it's not suppressed by a patient's daily dosage of anti-rejection drugs. This often results in death or further expensive treatment to save the patient's life.
Some financially strained patients take that chance. CODA's prescription drug program is devised to avoid a patient making such a fateful choice.
Why does CODA only cover co-pays? What about someone who is uninsured?
We cover co-pays because we are small right now and the most efficient way to spend your contributions that benefit the most patients is to concentrate on prescription drug co-pays.
Will CODA ever cover the uninsured? Someday we hope and expect to do so. |
