The Problem With Insurance 10:19 PM

Picked up this gem from Aetna's website regarding the Hep B vaccine:

Aetna considers hepatitis B vaccine a medically necessary preventive service for members with any of the following indications:

1. Infants, regardless of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) status of the mother; or
2. Children and adolescents (0-18 years) who have not been vaccinated previously; or
3. Adults (over 18 years of age) at increased risk for hepatitis B infection, including:

• hemophiliacs
• injecting-drug users
• persons with a history of multiple sex partners
• persons with a recent sexually transmitted disease
• men who have sex with men
• international travelers to geographic areas of high endemicity*
• household and sexual contacts of hepatitis B virus carriers
• persons who undergo hemodialysis
• health-care workers*
• inmates of long-term correctional facilities*
• hepatitis C virus positive persons, or
• persons with chronic liver disease.
• Transplant candidates of any age.

Aetna considers hepatitis B vaccine experimental and investigational for all other indications.
*Note: Aetna generally does not cover immunizations required for travel or because of work-related risk. Check contract language, limitations and exclusions for coverage details.

Interestingly, after you're 18, Aetna no longer sees the need to pay for a Hep B vaccine for healthy adults. And apparently even though they cover health care workers and international travelers, according to the fine print in the note "aetna generally does not cover immunizations required for travel or because of work-related risk."

Hey, that's pretty neat! Apparently if you put an asterisk next to something you can totally negate it in the fine print. Observe:

Aetna offers amazing healthcare coverage.*

*Note: Generally, Aetna sucks and fails to provide amazing healthcare coverage.

It pains me to believe that at some point, someone behind a desk decided that it would be cheaper to pay for the liver transplants and meds associated with chronic Hep B rather than just vaccinate all of your customers. Clearly, treating people after the fact is far cheaper than working to build herd immunity in the population, right? So much for preventative medicine...

Mental Illness 6:23 PM

Casillas, Ofelia. (2009, July 18) Postcards from a remarkable life. Chicago Tribune.

Link Here

This story about the life of Lucille Taliaferro from Saturday's Chicago Tribune is probably one of the most compelling reasons to fight for a cure to mental illnesses such as Alzheimer's. That one woman could lead such a productive and imaginative life only to end up lost in her own mind is heartbreaking.

I think that the mentally ill are often only seen as a snapshot; as what they have become rather than all that they have been. Engaging in a full understanding of how someone's life has been so dramatically altered by disease certainly helps to underscore the sense of urgency we face in studying pathologies of the body and mind.

Image from the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative