Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program will make treatment for hepatitis C more readily available to Medicaid beneficiaries beginning on July 1, state officials have announced.
In recent years, new drugs have become available that effectively cure hepatitis C but their exceptionally high costs led many insurers, including most state Medicaid programs, to limit access to those drugs until patients show more advanced signs of the disease.  A year ago the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services’ pharmacy and therapeutics committee recommended expanding access to these drugs for Pennsylvania Medicaid beneficiaries and now, that recommendation has been adopted and that expansion will begin with the new state fiscal year on July 1.
Under the new criteria, patients with lower scores of severity of hepatitis C will become eligible for treatment.  Previously, Medicaid patients were required to show more advanced signs of illness before the medicine was provided to them.
Learn more about the Pennsylvania Medicaid program’s revised approach to serving Medicaid patients with hepatitis C in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.