(Tricare) Defense official vows some relief from surprise lab fees

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/02/08/3034861/defense-official-vows-some-relief.html

Defense official vows some relief from surprise lab fees
By TOM PHILPOTT
Contributing Writer
February 8, 2014

Army Maj. Gen. Richard W. Thomas, newly assigned as chief medical officer and director of health care operations for the new Defense Health Agency, acknowledges that some Tricare patients and their civilian physicians face lab fee challenges that the DHA needs to address.

A year ago Tricare, the military’s health insurance program, stopped reimbursing civilian laboratories for more than 100 genetic or laboratory-developed tests. Some of the tests are critical for patient care and routinely still ordered by military physicians.

Among patients frustrated by disparity of coverage is retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Prouhet, who is fighting a blood cell cancer called acute promyelocytic leukemia. His civilian oncologist in Colorado orders a special blood test for him every 110 days. The PML/RAR Alpha Translocation Analysis Monitoring Test is the most sensitive available to track this type of leukemia for patients in remission. The alternative is a bone marrow biopsy, which is more expensive and invasive and therefore more risky, Prouhet said.

His oncologist, Prouhet said, told him he would consider “it malpractice if he did not use this test to monitor and treat my cancer.”