Mati Munoz lost her liver to hepatitis C, and the virus was attacking its transplanted replacement last year when her doctor prescribed a drug combination that could save the organ.
She just needed $7,000 for an initial payment not covered by her Medicare prescription plan.
“I felt sunken,” the 65-year-old Woodbridge, New Jersey, woman said. “I thought, ‘How am I going to come up with this?'”
Munoz is among roughly 5 million people in the U.S. who rely on a growing class of medications known as specialty drugs – advanced medicine for complex conditions such as hepatitis C, juvenile arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Doctors hail many of these therapies as breakthroughs, since they can conquer or control diseases that were once almost untreatable. But they can cost more than $80,000 for a single course of treatment and bury patients in debt, even those with insurance. Patient advocates expect the problem to worsen as insurance coverage shrinks and use of specialty treatments grows.