Uninsured and diagnosed with breast cancer (not me) any ideas??

[Deborajen]

I work on the finance side of a group medical practice. We do take some non-paying and deep-discount patients, but we can only afford to absorb a limited number of them. Here are a few ideas I know of:

1. Try contacting your local medical society. Our county medical society has a program called Project Access which connects qualified uninsured patients (who have "slipped through the cracks" and don't qualify for Medicaid, etc.) with medical care. As I understand it, the patients apply for the program and are directed to medical providers who have agreed to accept a certain number of Project Access patients each month/year on a no-cost basis.

2. Check with pharmaceutical companies that manufacture cancer treatment drugs and see if they have a patient's advocate, or maybe even a program for uninsured patients. I just put one of our patients in touch with a patient's advocate - they can be a good source of information. I'm not very knowledgeable in cancer treatment meds, but try googling the name of a med and see who manufactures it - then find their website and search for a patient's advocate or a charity or hardship program.

3. Ditto the previous recommendations on getting in touch with a hospital social worker. They're trained in what resources are available locally, and the hospital might be able to arrange at least some treatment by medical students (who are, of course, supervised by a MD or a DO) - ?

4. Don't hesitate to negotiate with a doctor's office for a discount. Most medical practices do contract with insurance and, therefore, have to accept discounted insurance rates. In other words, they can negotiate with an uninsured patient, too.

Hope she can find a good solution and get the care she needs. I wish I knew more about resources for uninsured patients but most of what we work with is just trying to get insurance carriers to pay.