Insurance Issues If Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer | Prostate ...

Every year, more than 200,000 men in the US are diagnosed with prostate cancer, making it the most common cancer, other than skin cancer, to affect American men. However, as with any disease or condition, many men, even those with the best health insurance, need to know what this sort of diagnosis will mean for their health insurance plans.

Health Insurance Coverage

Whenever anyone is diagnosed with a serious or life-threatening disease, such as prostate cancer, one of the first worries facing them is that of money. Tests, surgery, medication, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and hospitalization all cost money, as well as being cared for by medical professionals. Unfortunately, not all necessary treatments are covered even by the best health insurance, and those that are may be capped.

Lack of Health Insurance

Things become even harder for people who don?t have any health cover at all. By the end of last year, 49.9 million Americans were completely without health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. This comprises 16.3 per cent of the population. Even more worrying, 20 per cent of people over the age of 50 have dramatically cut back on their health insurance in a bid to save money. This may cause many problems as prostate cancer risk increases with age, changing from a 1 in 10,000 risk for men under the age of 40, to a 1 in 14 risk to men over the age of 59.

Health care reforms

The Health Care Reform, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, was signed into law in March 2010. Because of it, many changes have already come into effect, or will do so by 2014.? One, which is pertinent for people diagnosed with prostate cancer or any other costly condition, is that health insurance plans are not allowed to place a lifetime limit, or cap, on the value of coverage. Insurers are no longer allowed to take away coverage, except in cases of fraud. This is also good news for many people who previously worried that their health insurance plans could be retracted on a technicality rather than pay out for costly treatments. More importantly, from January 1 2014, nobody can be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, and waiting periods greater than 90 days for coverage will be eliminated.? Uninsured individuals who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer will also have access to a government insurance pool program.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2012 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.prostatecancersurvivorspeak.com/insurance-issues-if-diagnosed-with-prostate-cancer/

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