Bupa abandons cost and time limits for cancer cover
Corporate PMI schemes for cancer treatment featuring time limits and financial caps have been scrapped by Bupa, as a means of protecting patients who could otherwise have been left helpless at key points during treatment.
The caps were initially brought in to contain financial exposure for client businesses in response to a swift rise in cancer treatment costs across 2005 and 2006, caused by the development of new drugs.
Leading healthcare organizations such as The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have raised serious concerns about how these cuts will be implemented and what affect they will have on healthcare in Britain. The General Secretary and Chief Executive of the RCN has publicly commented on the risk of significant job cuts claiming this ‘erosion of staffing’ cannot fail but to have a negative effect on the quality of national healthcare.
Bupa claim that the move to end the capped schemes is an industry first. A senior figure added, "We work closely with our clients to help them to provide their employees with the best quality healthcare at a sustainable affordable cost." The priority for Bupa is to provide "better, fairer ways of controlling healthcare costs without compromising the experience and outcomes of patients at a difficult time in their lives."
Bupa regularly funds cancer treatments that are approved by the European Medicines Agency, and will pay for experimental drugs when clinically appropriate. Bupa spent £18m on drugs in 2010.
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