Would you want to know if you are predisposed to rheumatoid arthritis? Or if the Plavix your mother has been taking for 2 years is actually working.... or is it inhibited by some gene mutation?
-
Or maybe you want to know your risk for certain cancers, or how your body best metabolizes food?
-
All this knowledge is out there. All you have to do is get a kit at Walgreen's and send in your saliva. Send a company a couple hundred dollars and you can get your results online.
-
Just like that.
-
I've spent entirely too much time reading up about this. Not that I wanted to, but we got a call from a company doing just such a test. After a series of phone calls and verifications it was determined that our doctor didn't initiate it, the insurance company did. Faxed a note to doctors who have patients on certain drugs...said they would pay for the test.... just sign off on it and there ya go.
-
In this particular instance it was a gene test to see if a certain drug metabolized properly. Gee,
how nice of them to wonder, I thought at first. How caring. Really?
-
Well.... as I always say, follow the money. So I tried. I put them off. I honestly didn't know what to do.
-
It was a long strange trip, but somehow, cost savings was tied into these genetic results. Plavix is going generic next year and it will shake up that class of drug. Other drugs are trying to fill the void. Position themselves as the NEXT BIG THING. Providers are looking for ways to save money and they really want people on the generics. Limit any market hoggers with big costs.
-
I don't understand a lot of it yet. There is a lot of talk about preserving market share....yet results are results. If your genes don't process a drug right, it is what it is. Inevitably a percentage of people will have to go another drug.
-
Makes me nervous, all this genetics stuff in general. So many issues. Confidentiality.... future denial of coverage...the stigma of knowing what may be ahead. Just the issue of handing over all that information to a big, impersonal company of faceless people with power.
-
I don't know the future of all this, but it most definately ahead. It's already in Walgreens.
No comments:
Post a Comment