Cost of Care Essay
It has been a wild ride since I entered the Costs of Care Essay competition. Here is the essay in full:
“$1400 a day!”
Cost of Care Essay Contest Submission
Andrew Schutzbank MD, MPH
Peggy was in her early 70s and suffered from a terrible lung disease known as pulmonary hypertension. So bad in fact, that she had a pump infusing a medicine under her skin 24 hours a day to keep the blood supply to her lungs open. Once started, this medicine, treprostinil, was known to improve life in those with pulmonary hypertension. Unfortunately, like all continuous infusion medicines of this type, it has the unfortunate side effect of sudden death if stopped for more than 4 hours. Starting it was a difficult choice for Peggy and her expert team of physicians, but her disease had progressed to a point where it was the right decision. As you can imagine, this drug was mighty expensive. We would only find out how expensive later.
On the day that I met Peggy, she was being admitted to the Intensive Ca…
