MFN Impact on Patients
The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network is working in every state across the country. They worry, “the executive order involving Medicare drug coverage creates significant questions around drug accessibility, which could potentially make it much harder for cancer patients to get the drugs necessary to treat their disease.”
MFN Impact on Providers
The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is dedicated to improving the care of patients with rheumatic diseases like arthritis that cause the immune system to attack joints, muscles, bones and organs. ACR has determined that, “the (MFN) rule threatens the financial solvency of many rheumatology practices… and jeopardizes the ability of rheumatologists to provide treatments to patients most in need. This will be detrimental to provider solvency and patient access to medications.”
POLICY IMPACT
Caregiver Impact
According to AARP’s 2015 survey, 43.5 million adults in the United States are providing unpaid care to a loved one. Caregivers are communicating with healthcare providers, driving to appointments, making decisions about treatment plans, helping with medical tasks, managing finances and medications, and advocating to ensure that the right care is being delivered in the right setting at the right time.
Caring for loved ones comes at a high cost – the average caregiver spends 24 hours a week caring for a loved one. This care brings an emotional, financial and economic toll. The majority of caregivers who are employed report that they have experienced disruptions to their employment – missed days, unscheduled leave, lost job benefits, and an impact on their job performance.
When the patient with a complex chronic condition is also your spouse, parent or child, you walk every step of the journey with them. Family members are part of the care team. Family caregivers do not get a day off.
Navigating the treatment of a complex or chronic disease is complicated. Caregivers shouldn’t have added stress, uncertainty and instability.
How does the MFN proposal impact caregivers?
1 Increased Anxiety. MFN threatens patient access to life-saving medications and makes it harder to manage patient disease. It interferes with a patient’s individualized treatment plan and the care decisions made by doctors and patients. This only adds additional stress and anxiety to the underlying challenges caregivers face.
2 Increased Burden of Care. MFN may cause disruptions in treatment scheduling and complicate access to personalized treatment. In some cases, patients may be forced to seek out new healthcare providers, likely further from home. The burden of these care changes impact caregivers, particularly those caring for the sickest and most vulnerable patients.
3 Inconsistent Patient Care. MFN undermines the medical principals of striving for the highest quality patient care through use of the most effective treatment options to achieve the best possible outcome. It restricts treatment options for the most vulnerable Medicare patients. When treatment options are focused on cost instead of outcomes, diseases progress and caregiving becomes more complicated.
Patients and their family caregivers should focus on healing and quality of life, not face long travel times, more paperwork and uncertainty.