Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill

[lunadiana]

There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy.  It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still

Comments

[suewan]

That is horrible about drive through mastectomy. My mum had a mastectomy last year and she was not fit to go home for three days. There was no way my mum could have coped being home so soon. That really is shocking!

its a mess

[lunadiana]

Insurance companies in the states have a lot of power and force some really bad health policies. It wasn't that long ago that women were being sent home from the hospitals with their newborns within 24 hours of birth and only after 2 days with a cesarian. It got fixed but it was a battle and a lot of newborns had to go right back to the hospital because they needed the attention.

The sad part is our government would only screw up socialized medicine so I don't know if that is the answer either.

[twilyght]

Thanks for putting this on your journal. I've copied the web address and put it on the bulletin board of my staff lounge. We do hundreds of mastectomies a year here at my hospital. To think that insurance companies want a woman to go home right after one of these very difficult and lenghty procedures is criminal.