Lifesaving stroke drug more expensive for rural hospitals
Because of the orphan drug exclusion written into the Affordable Care Act (ACA), rural hospitals can’t get the same discounts on some pharmaceuticals available to larger hospitals.
That includes the clot-busting stroke drug Activase, which costs $8,010 for a single dose at Stone County Medical Center in Mountain View, Arkansas. Just 36 miles away, a regional hospital gets an 80 percent discount on the same drug, according to a Kaiser Health News report.
“If we don’t keep this drug [in stock], people will die,” Maddy Langston, hospital pharmacist at Stone County Medical Center, told KHN.
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Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.