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I received a letter from State Senator Augustus (Worcester District) on Friday. He has cosponsored legislation titled,"An Act Promoting Education and Access to Medical Care for Person with Lyme Disease". It is also sponsored by Senator Robert O'Leary.
Senator Augustus is hopeful the bill "will move quickly through the committee process and come before the full Senate for a vote during the current legislative session. Please know that if the bill does come before the Senate for a formal vote, you can expect my full support."
This bill is loosely modeled after the Rhode Island bill 5-37.5. The bill basically states:
A. "A physician may prescribe antibiotics for a patient diagnosed with Lyme disease, if this diagnosis and treatment plan is documented in the medical record for that patient.
No physician is subject to disciplinary action by the board solely for prescribing long-term antibiotic treatment for a patient clinically diagnosed with lyme disease, if this diagnosis and treatment plan is documented in the medical record for that patient.
B. Nothing in this section precludes the right of the board to deny, revoke or suspend the liscnese of any physician or disciline any physician who prescribes long-term antibiotic treatment for a non-therapeutic purpose, or who fails to monitor the ongoing care of a patient receiving long-term treatment, or who fails to keep complete and accurate records of the diasnosis and treatment of a patient receiving long-term antibiotic treatment.
The dept. shall provide state wide lyme disease education for physicians, schools and the general public. The dept. shall promote detection prevention and treatment programs for tick-borne diseases and work with graduate medical and nursing programs and establish an appropriate curriculum.
The dept. shall perform a cost-benefit analyses on insurnace coverage of long term antibiotic care for lyme disease patients. The dept. shall prolulgate regulations for the lab detection of lyme disease, for the state of art testing protocol and shall develop clinical provider training programs for the assessment and treatment of tick-borne illnesses."
Senator Augustus has been very active in Greg's treatment. Our insurance would only pay for 30 days of iv rocephin. The cost out of pocket was approx. $200/day. In desperation, I emailed Senator Augustus. He called me the next day to get more information and he was able to get our insurance co to extend Greg's treatment another 30 days saving us a lot of $$$!
He calls or emails once a month to check on Greg's condition and I'm hoping he's wearing the lyme bracelet we sent him.
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Impressive. Hope all the MA lymies are contacting their own reps to vote for it.
It does look like there are some loopholes. For instance, that "non-therapeutic" doses thing. That is just what Klempner calls extended treatment.
And the cost benefit analysis could easily be rigged if the wrong people were doing it. Are they going to include ALL the costs of failing to provide adequate treatment: job, divorce, special schooling needs, lost productivity, additional medical costs from joint replacements, back surgery, etc etc?
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