Beyond Type 1 Joins Smarter Healthcare Coalition (SHCC) in Supporting the Chronic Disease Management Act For COVID-19
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In a letter to Congress, the Smarter Healthcare Coalition is asking that lawmakers make an effort to include the Chronic Disease Management Act of 2020 (S. 3200) in the next COVID-19 legislative package. A bipartisan effort, this iteration of the Chronic Disease Management Act would make it so that individuals with chronic conditions who have a health savings account (HSA) paired with a high deductible health plan (HDHP) can receive quality care pre-deductible. Giving employers and health plans the flexibility to reduce out-of-pocket costs and deliver first-dollar coverage could help create some much-needed stability during this time of uncertainty for so many.
For those who live with a chronic illness like diabetes, day-to-day management and care to prevent complications is always crucial. This is a reality that is only heightened in a pandemic like COVID-19 because the people with diabetes are significantly more vulnerable to severe illness and long-term complications should they contract the Coronavirus. It’s important that our response to COVID-19 includes shedding light on those most vulnerable and the financial barriers to healthcare they might face, especially when so many are seeing economic uncertainty as joblessness grows.
The HSA-HDHP marketplace is expanding now more than ever, making the inclusion of this act extremely important. Individuals enrolled in these types of arrangements encounter limited services and access to medications tied to their chronic illness. Ensuring access to healthcare services and medications on a pre-deductible basis would likely result in fewer preventable emergency room visits and hospitalizations, curb delayed care caused by COVID-19 and ultimately help limit its spread by improving healthcare access for millions of Americans.
Beyond Type 1 is a member of the Smarter Healthcare Coalition, which has the goal to “better align health care spending with value, improve patient experiences and lower health care costs by supporting innovative benefit design.” Removing financial barriers to quality healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic is a swift and impactful change we can make in the lives of all those living with chronic illness, and especially those with diabetes.
For more information about Smarter Healthcare and a list of other coalitions that Beyond Type 1 sits on and supports, click here.
