FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
Getting funding for Lyme is tricky since insurance barely pays anything. Three companies listed below help Lyme patients financially cover prescriptions.
Clinic of Angels: Helps Lyme patients who are struggling to make ends meet with prescription drugs or prescription IV’s. They do not pay for doctor appointments, labs, or anything natural.
Prescription Hope : Charges a monthly fee for many prescriptions. However, you can also apply directly through any manufacturer of prescription drugs for a financial hardship if you qualify, and the RX drugs could be free or lower cost.
LymeLight: Only helps young female girls with Lyme who are challenged financially.
HOSPITAL BILLING / HOME CARE BILLS
Remember to always apply for Financial Assistance on Hospital Bills or any home care bills from in home nursing. Usually you just need to call the number on your bill to have them send you an application for Financial Assistance or Charity Care to see if you qualify.
MEDICAL INSURANCE
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to get back even a few dollars from insurance companies when having Lyme. Most insurance companies will only pay out a maximum of 30 days for Lyme diagnosis since they believe it can be cured in that amount of time (Ya! Right!). Most LLMD’s (Lyme Literate Medical Doctors) do not take insurance, and at best they give you a superbill. Because most LLMD’s staff is not trained on insurance paperwork they often lack knowledge on ‘procedure-coding’ or what diagnosis to put. Insurance has truly been the biggest nightmare to cope with while being sick. Just when you have no strength left they love to see how much more you can take and not pay out 🙂
Helpful Hints:
Try to get your doctor to code the bill with diagnosis codes of symptoms and not Lyme, Bartonella, or Babesia diagnosis. Here’s a short list of insurance codes and diagnosis for symptoms that could be used and are more likely to get you covered:
- A49.3 — Mycoplasma Infection
- B89 — Unspecified Parasitic Disease
- B96.81 — Helicobacter Pylori
- D64.9 — Anemia
- E56.9 — Vitamin Deficiency
- K20.9 — Esophagitis
- K27.9 — Acute Peptic Ulcer
- K29.70 — Gastritis without Bleeding
- K90.9 — Intestinal Malabsorption
- M25.50 — Arthralgia (Joint Pain)
- M86.10 — Acute Osteomyelitis
- R06.02 — Shortness of Breath
- R10.9 — Abdominal Pain
- R11 — Nausea and Vomiting
- R20.2 — Paresthesia of Skin
- R59.1 — Enlarged Lymph Nodes
- R53.83 — Other Fatigue
- R79.89 — Abnormal Findings of Blood Chemistry
Also, Immune Deficiency diagnosis is one of the only diagnoses accepted for getting approved for intravenous IVIG (Human Plasma which repairs nerve damage caused by Lyme).
If you are in California, I know of one Lyme-literate neurologist who has the best chance of getting IVIG covered by medical insurance with her brilliant letters to insurance companies.
"We never had in the last five years a single MS patient, a single ALS patient, a single Parkinson's patient who did not test positive for Borrelia Burgdorferi. Not a single one."
