A Win for Cancer Patients
To the Editor,
Our state legislature recently passed legislation that will improve access to care not just for cancer survivors like me but for everyone in Massachusetts. The legislation passed will reform a practice known as step therapy. Through step therapy, a patient may be required to try, then fail, on alternative drugs selected by their insurance company before coverage is granted for the medication prescribed by the patient’s health care provider.
I want to thank our legislature for passing this critical legislation and the governor for signing it into law, but I want to specifically thank Representative Jeffrey Roy, Representative Marjorie Decker, Senator Cindy Friedman, Senator Julian Cyr, and Representative John Lawn for championing this legislation. When step therapy is allowed to occur, the protocols of the process limit a health care provider’s ability to tailor care to individual patient needs causing poor outcomes or unnecessary suffering.
My fellow volunteers at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, and I look forward to working with the legislature next year to continue improving cancer patients’ lives.
Kate Weissman