It’s Official Blue Cross Blue Shield will continue to pay
It’s official - On May 22 the Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) parent organization, Health Care Servive Corporation for these four states Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Illinois called Dr. Lee, the director of the Proton Therapy Center to let him know they would continue to cover proton therapy for prostate cancer in Texas. Also Bob Marckini confirmed that this applies to the other states as well and they did not put the proposed policy in place. In fact it’s been removed from the BCBS web-site.Thanks to everyone who either wrote or called into to the BCBS headquarters and Dr. Lee thanks us for all the help. Your efforts along with a mighty push from the leaders at the Proton Center and centers, helped stave off this second major move to cut the reimbursement for early prostate cancer treatments at proton centers. The first was Medicare’s move last September when the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services collected comments about the treatmentThis is huge and if BCBS had gone ahead, then all the other private carriers would have gone along; paving the way for Medicare and the current administration to cut.Our next campaign should be to educate and influence the law makers and analysts who are drafting the new heath care plan in Washington. The only problem is that effort is moving very fast and not much information is available to study about their approach.Thanks to Luke Mizell who wrote to the Blue Cross Blue Shield executive. This is the letter he received in response.BCBS LetterJoe LandryJune 2009
