INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITY – Global Healthy Living Foundation Celebrates Governor Cuomo Signing Patient-Protecting Step Therapy Bill

UPPER NYACK, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–On December 31, 2016, Governor Cuomo signed S.3419C, the Step Therapy bill, into law, putting into a place a transparent process for physicians and patients to implement when seeking exemptions for health insurance policies requiring step therapy (“fail first”). The Global Healthy Living Foundation celebrates this historic action to protect New Yorkers battling chronic disease.

Gov Cuomo signs protective Step Therapy bill into law. Thank you from chronic disease patients!

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Step therapy forces patients to try and fail on medications other than what their doctor has prescribed before an insurer will cover the cost of the originally prescribed treatment. It does not factor in a patient’s known clinical history, possible contraindications, their stability on their current medication, and many other factors that are specific to an individual. In sum, when applied inappropriately, patient health can be negatively impacted due to the delay in receiving or not receiving medication and the disease progression that may result. With Governor Cuomo’s signature, now New York State patients and physicians can better work with commercial insurance plans to meet treatment needs based on science and evidence-based clinical guidelines.

For over six years, Global Healthy Living Foundation has advocated for step therapy reform in New York, helping New Yorkers with chronic autoimmune diseases share their story battling these harmful barriers to care. Together with 80 other patient and health professional organizations, GHLF supported the legislation New York State Assemblyman Matthew Titone and New York State Senator Catharine Young sponsored and tirelessly championed. Collectively, patients and providers worked to continually engage with stakeholders to find compromise language that would both serve patients and reassure payers.

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW

• Stephen Marmaras, Director of State and National Advocacy, Global Healthy Living Foundation
• Dani Askin, Brooklyn resident and psoriatic arthritis patient who advocated in Albany in support of this law

About Global Healthy Living Foundation

The Global Healthy Living Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the quality of life for people living with chronic illnesses by advocating for improved access to care at the community, state, and federal levels, and amplifying education and awareness efforts within its social media framework. The Global Healthy Living Foundation is the parent organization of CreakyJoints, the go-to source for more than 100,000 arthritis patients and their families world-wide who are seeking education, support, advocacy and patient-centered research and the recently launched ArthritisPower.