Health insurances cutting glaucoma care coverage

This is an attempt to spread awareness and gather ideas on how to proceed from my fellow redditors!

I am an ophthalmologist and a glaucoma specialist. United Healthcare and other insurance providers are, as of Nov 1st 2023, no longer covering certain procedures to treat glaucoma. They claim there is a lack of evidence that these procedures work. This is absolutely false and they are ignoring / cherry picking clinical studies.

Let me back up a bit, glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness IN THE WORLD. This disease blinds people every day. The problem is every person’s glaucoma is a bit different and there’s no 1 perfect silver bullet to stop glaucoma progression. There are big, high risk surgeries that do an ok job of treating glaucoma. But new technology is coming out that is effective, lower risk, but a less permanent solution. These are the technologies that insurances all of a sudden won’t cover. (They need to be repeated every few years, and insurance doesn’t want to pay for more than 1 procedure). They want every patient with glaucoma to get the big, high risk surgeries. Some patients need this for sure, but many don’t. This decision not only exposes patients to major blinding surgical complications like infection, hemorrhage, and chronic inflammation, but it totally hamstrings technological advancement in glaucoma treatment research.

It just seems like a shady cash grab by big insurance. People are going blind from this disease every day. We should have MORE treatment modalities, not less.

How can I advocate for my patients and fight the ruling by United Health care and others that are following suit?
Thanks!

submitted by /u/Eyeguy9999
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