WakeMed fought for me. Now it wants to disappear into a system so large that the next patient may not be so lucky. Raleigh does not need this deal. Patients like me will pay for it.
Ten days after I learned my bladder cancer had returned, the FDA approved a drug called Anktiva that could treat it. I found out by chance, and I was desperate enough to chase it. I put the drugmaker’s representative in touch with my doctor at WakeMed, and my doctor went to work.
What came next was not Anktiva. It was a 90-day siege of paperwork. My insurer essentially said, “Not yet,” and then said it again through denials, appeals, secondary denials, and secondary appeals, each delay stacked on the last. In American health care, a denial is not a decision. It is a business model, and delay is its most profitable feature. For 90 days I did not know whether I would get the drug or whether I would be trading my bladder for a bag…