ACA President/CEO on NPR's Marketplace
Meredith Goins
Description
Collection
Title:
ACA President/CEO on NPR's Marketplace
Creator:
Meredith Goins
Date:
4/27/2006
Text:
Paddy Rossbach, ACA President/CEO was featured on NPR's Marketplace on
4/25/06. The piece is about the need for prosthetic parity and the
disparity between military and civilian care. You can hear the story,
titled Civilian amputees find it hard to get their C-legs, on the
Marketplace Web site at
<URL Redacted>
< <URL Redacted>> . The
transcript is below.
Text of the Story
KAI RYSSDAL: About 2,300 soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Another
17,000 or so have been injured. Hundreds have become amputees. And they
are getting the most modern possible care. The government spends
millions of dollars in prosthetics technology. Soldiers are even
returning to active duty with prosthetic legs. But civilian amputees are
getting far different standards of care. Ann Heppermann has more.
________________________________
ANN HEPPERMANN: Last spring, Andrew Gillespie found out he had bone
cancer.
ANDREW GILLESPIE: They couldn't safely remove the tumor, so the best
medical based decision was to just go straight for an amputation.
Doctors removed Andrew's leg above the knee. He had to learn walk again
on a prosthestic leg. His first leg, which the insurance paid for,
didn't work for Andrew.
ANDREW: I would fall all the time on it. I probably fell two, three
times a week.
So his doctor then prescribed a computerized leg, also known as a C-leg.
But the family's insurance company wouldn't pay for it.
ANDREW: I had no idea that the insurance companies were going to be so
difficult to work with. You know when they have something that can
really improve your quality of life, it seems like it doesn't really
matter how much that should cost.
The leg costs about $40,000. Andrew's family had to take out a loan to
pay for it. It's high tech, using sensors and algorithms to predict a
person's stride. The C-leg made Andrew's life almost normal again. But
the struggle's not over. His mom, Mary, spent three months haggling with
the insurance company, eventually writing a 65-page letter arguing why
Andrew needed the C-leg.
MARY: If I could spare another mother somewhere from having to go
through this difficult situation, then it will all have been worthwhile.
Andrew's experience getting a prosthetic would have been different had
he lost his leg in Iraq. C-legs are standard issue for injured soldiers
at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Pretty much all
amputees have one. Lance Corporal Kade Hinkhouse does. Before the Iraq
war, the 20-year-old played football for his high school team - the
Burlington Cougars. Now, he sits in a wheelchair in one of the therapy
rooms.
KADE HINKHOUSE: I was in Iraq and we were making a drop for the snipers
and on the way to the drop a dual-stacked IED blew up. It killed the
Marine next to me and it took off my right leg above the knee. After
that I don't remember because I was knocked unconscious.
When he woke up, Kade was an amputee. Doctors removed his right leg just
above the knee, plus part of his skull and brain. The left side of his
body shut down.
KADE: It took me a week to learn how to close my hand into a fist.
Kade works with a team of doctors and therapists almost daily.
THERAPIST: Let me see a fist.
At Walter Reed, patients get constant care. Everyone seems to have at
least one C-leg, sometimes even two. But the atmosphere is surprisingly
upbeat. People cheer each other on. Kade and his therapist, Christy,
joke around . . .
THERAPIST (CHRISTY): Cheater! . . .
And visitors from rock stars like Aerosmith to therapy dogs stop by to
cheer up the soldiers.
THERAPIST (CHRISTY): The dogs!
Kade's recovered quickly. He walked again for the first time this
February . . . with help from his prosthetis. Mike Cochran makes
artificial limbs. He says when you're a prosthetist, you're with a
patient for life - refitting them, tinkering and tweaking components and
sockets. Right now, Mike's in the prosthetics lab, which is like a
workshop for limbs. He rifles through a set of plastic bins filled with
artificial arms and legs stacked all the way to the ceiling.
MIKE COCHRAN: Well, each patient has components in boxes. And this
patient has new feet. These feet are going to allow her to wear high
heels.
At Walter Reed, it's not uncommon for an amputee to have two prosthetic
legs or different sets of feet. Mike says patients have what they need
to recover quickly. He attributes the success partially to their
discipline as soldiers, but also thinks it's the care they receive. Mike
also works with amputees in civilian hospitals. He claims that things
are different for patients under the care of private insurance.
MIKE: It's terrible to become an amputee with private insurance because
some of them pay for one prosthesis in a lifetime. Some have a cap of
$1,000 that wouldn't even pay for the liners, the interface between the
body and the socket.
One of his patients at Adventist Hospital is Eugene Poe.
MIKE: He's a cab driver in D.C.
MR. POE: Yeah, I've been driving a cab for 30 years, full- and
part-time.
Mr. Poe has diabetes and lost his leg over two years ago. His insurance
company paid for a leg, but nothing else.
MR. POE: The leg had shrunk, but yet I couldn't get anybody to make a
new top, so I just had to wear like 12 pairs of socks to build up the
difference.
Mr. Poe isn't the only patient Mike has seen struggle with private
insurance. He's worked with amputees who've had terrible falls as they
waited for a prosthetic . . . and then had to have more of their leg
amputated.
MIKE: We've seen patients. . . . A 19-year-old motorcycle accident. They
discharged him from the hospital three days after amputation. He's in a
nursing home with 90-year-olds.
These experiences have made him jaded.
MIKE: The problem with insurance is, they're not a charity. They're not
in it for the care to people. They're in it to make money to satisfy
their shareholders.
And some who think the way Mike does want to change this. The Amputee
Coalition of America is a non-profit group working for amputee rights.
Paddy Rossbach is the executive director. She says the group is going
state by state, lobbying for a law requiring insurance to cover
prosthetics.
PADDY ROSSBACH: So there will be no restrictions as long as it is
prescribed by a medical doctor and the most appropriate prosthesis.
The bill has already passed in Colorado, New Hampshire and Maine. But
the health insurance industry believes these kinds of laws are the wrong
answer. Susan Pisano of America's Health Insurance Plans says they
amount to mandates, and make health care unaffordable.
SUSAN PISANO: The weight of these mandates has made it impossible for
some employers to be able to afford to provide health benefits at all.
Instead, Pisano says what the industry needs is more research . . .
PISANO: What convinces employers and policymakers and others in the
healthcare system today is good evidence that something works, that
something works better, that something works cost effectively.
Andrew Gillespie and his family lobbied their insurance company for
months, before recently learning they would be reimbursed for his C-leg.
Prosthetist Mike Cochran says his civilian patients learn how to wait.
In an examination room, Mike adjusts Mr. Poe's foot . . .
MIKE: It's rotated in now. . . .
MR. POE: Yeah, yeah.
Last year, Mr. Poe became eligible for Medicare and the program paid for
a computerized leg. He's walking much better now. But in Mike's opinion,
it's taken too long.
MIKE: Where he's at now, he should have been two, three years ago. So
he's basically wasted these years.
And now, Mr. Poe is back at work, driving his cab.
MR. POE: As long as you stay out working, keeping your mind and body
going, you'll be all right.
In Washington, D.C., I'm Ann Heppermann for Marketplace.
* * * * *
Kara Oehler co-produced this story.
Meredith P. Goins, MS
Marketing/Outreach Coordinator
Amputee Coalition of America
900 East Hill Ave., Ste. 285
Knoxville, TN 37915-2568
(888)AMP-KNOW ext. 8135
Fax: (865) 524-3122
<Email Address Redacted> <mailto:<Email Address Redacted>>
<URL Redacted> < http://www.amputee-coalition.org >
Join your friends for the ACA Annual Educational Conference & Exposition
< http://www.amputee-coalition.org/annual_meeting_about.html > , June
15-17, 2006, in Minneapolis, Minnesota!
This E-mail and any attachments contain privileged and confidential
information. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or
agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, be aware
that any dissemination or copying of this E-mail is prohibited. If you
have received this E-mail in error, please notify us immediately by
returning it to the sender and deleting this copy from your system.
Thank you for your cooperation.
********************
To unsubscribe, send a message to: <Email Address Redacted> with
the words UNSUB OANDP-L in the body of the
message.
If you have a problem unsubscribing,or have other
questions, send e-mail to the moderator
Paul E. Prusakowski,CPO at <Email Address Redacted>
OANDP-L is a forum for the discussion of topics
related to Orthotics and Prosthetics.
Public commercial postings are forbidden. Responses to inquiries
should not be sent to the entire oandp-l list. Professional credentials
or affiliations should be used in all communications.
4/25/06. The piece is about the need for prosthetic parity and the
disparity between military and civilian care. You can hear the story,
titled Civilian amputees find it hard to get their C-legs, on the
Marketplace Web site at
<URL Redacted>
< <URL Redacted>> . The
transcript is below.
Text of the Story
KAI RYSSDAL: About 2,300 soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Another
17,000 or so have been injured. Hundreds have become amputees. And they
are getting the most modern possible care. The government spends
millions of dollars in prosthetics technology. Soldiers are even
returning to active duty with prosthetic legs. But civilian amputees are
getting far different standards of care. Ann Heppermann has more.
________________________________
ANN HEPPERMANN: Last spring, Andrew Gillespie found out he had bone
cancer.
ANDREW GILLESPIE: They couldn't safely remove the tumor, so the best
medical based decision was to just go straight for an amputation.
Doctors removed Andrew's leg above the knee. He had to learn walk again
on a prosthestic leg. His first leg, which the insurance paid for,
didn't work for Andrew.
ANDREW: I would fall all the time on it. I probably fell two, three
times a week.
So his doctor then prescribed a computerized leg, also known as a C-leg.
But the family's insurance company wouldn't pay for it.
ANDREW: I had no idea that the insurance companies were going to be so
difficult to work with. You know when they have something that can
really improve your quality of life, it seems like it doesn't really
matter how much that should cost.
The leg costs about $40,000. Andrew's family had to take out a loan to
pay for it. It's high tech, using sensors and algorithms to predict a
person's stride. The C-leg made Andrew's life almost normal again. But
the struggle's not over. His mom, Mary, spent three months haggling with
the insurance company, eventually writing a 65-page letter arguing why
Andrew needed the C-leg.
MARY: If I could spare another mother somewhere from having to go
through this difficult situation, then it will all have been worthwhile.
Andrew's experience getting a prosthetic would have been different had
he lost his leg in Iraq. C-legs are standard issue for injured soldiers
at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Pretty much all
amputees have one. Lance Corporal Kade Hinkhouse does. Before the Iraq
war, the 20-year-old played football for his high school team - the
Burlington Cougars. Now, he sits in a wheelchair in one of the therapy
rooms.
KADE HINKHOUSE: I was in Iraq and we were making a drop for the snipers
and on the way to the drop a dual-stacked IED blew up. It killed the
Marine next to me and it took off my right leg above the knee. After
that I don't remember because I was knocked unconscious.
When he woke up, Kade was an amputee. Doctors removed his right leg just
above the knee, plus part of his skull and brain. The left side of his
body shut down.
KADE: It took me a week to learn how to close my hand into a fist.
Kade works with a team of doctors and therapists almost daily.
THERAPIST: Let me see a fist.
At Walter Reed, patients get constant care. Everyone seems to have at
least one C-leg, sometimes even two. But the atmosphere is surprisingly
upbeat. People cheer each other on. Kade and his therapist, Christy,
joke around . . .
THERAPIST (CHRISTY): Cheater! . . .
And visitors from rock stars like Aerosmith to therapy dogs stop by to
cheer up the soldiers.
THERAPIST (CHRISTY): The dogs!
Kade's recovered quickly. He walked again for the first time this
February . . . with help from his prosthetis. Mike Cochran makes
artificial limbs. He says when you're a prosthetist, you're with a
patient for life - refitting them, tinkering and tweaking components and
sockets. Right now, Mike's in the prosthetics lab, which is like a
workshop for limbs. He rifles through a set of plastic bins filled with
artificial arms and legs stacked all the way to the ceiling.
MIKE COCHRAN: Well, each patient has components in boxes. And this
patient has new feet. These feet are going to allow her to wear high
heels.
At Walter Reed, it's not uncommon for an amputee to have two prosthetic
legs or different sets of feet. Mike says patients have what they need
to recover quickly. He attributes the success partially to their
discipline as soldiers, but also thinks it's the care they receive. Mike
also works with amputees in civilian hospitals. He claims that things
are different for patients under the care of private insurance.
MIKE: It's terrible to become an amputee with private insurance because
some of them pay for one prosthesis in a lifetime. Some have a cap of
$1,000 that wouldn't even pay for the liners, the interface between the
body and the socket.
One of his patients at Adventist Hospital is Eugene Poe.
MIKE: He's a cab driver in D.C.
MR. POE: Yeah, I've been driving a cab for 30 years, full- and
part-time.
Mr. Poe has diabetes and lost his leg over two years ago. His insurance
company paid for a leg, but nothing else.
MR. POE: The leg had shrunk, but yet I couldn't get anybody to make a
new top, so I just had to wear like 12 pairs of socks to build up the
difference.
Mr. Poe isn't the only patient Mike has seen struggle with private
insurance. He's worked with amputees who've had terrible falls as they
waited for a prosthetic . . . and then had to have more of their leg
amputated.
MIKE: We've seen patients. . . . A 19-year-old motorcycle accident. They
discharged him from the hospital three days after amputation. He's in a
nursing home with 90-year-olds.
These experiences have made him jaded.
MIKE: The problem with insurance is, they're not a charity. They're not
in it for the care to people. They're in it to make money to satisfy
their shareholders.
And some who think the way Mike does want to change this. The Amputee
Coalition of America is a non-profit group working for amputee rights.
Paddy Rossbach is the executive director. She says the group is going
state by state, lobbying for a law requiring insurance to cover
prosthetics.
PADDY ROSSBACH: So there will be no restrictions as long as it is
prescribed by a medical doctor and the most appropriate prosthesis.
The bill has already passed in Colorado, New Hampshire and Maine. But
the health insurance industry believes these kinds of laws are the wrong
answer. Susan Pisano of America's Health Insurance Plans says they
amount to mandates, and make health care unaffordable.
SUSAN PISANO: The weight of these mandates has made it impossible for
some employers to be able to afford to provide health benefits at all.
Instead, Pisano says what the industry needs is more research . . .
PISANO: What convinces employers and policymakers and others in the
healthcare system today is good evidence that something works, that
something works better, that something works cost effectively.
Andrew Gillespie and his family lobbied their insurance company for
months, before recently learning they would be reimbursed for his C-leg.
Prosthetist Mike Cochran says his civilian patients learn how to wait.
In an examination room, Mike adjusts Mr. Poe's foot . . .
MIKE: It's rotated in now. . . .
MR. POE: Yeah, yeah.
Last year, Mr. Poe became eligible for Medicare and the program paid for
a computerized leg. He's walking much better now. But in Mike's opinion,
it's taken too long.
MIKE: Where he's at now, he should have been two, three years ago. So
he's basically wasted these years.
And now, Mr. Poe is back at work, driving his cab.
MR. POE: As long as you stay out working, keeping your mind and body
going, you'll be all right.
In Washington, D.C., I'm Ann Heppermann for Marketplace.
* * * * *
Kara Oehler co-produced this story.
Meredith P. Goins, MS
Marketing/Outreach Coordinator
Amputee Coalition of America
900 East Hill Ave., Ste. 285
Knoxville, TN 37915-2568
(888)AMP-KNOW ext. 8135
Fax: (865) 524-3122
<Email Address Redacted> <mailto:<Email Address Redacted>>
<URL Redacted> < http://www.amputee-coalition.org >
Join your friends for the ACA Annual Educational Conference & Exposition
< http://www.amputee-coalition.org/annual_meeting_about.html > , June
15-17, 2006, in Minneapolis, Minnesota!
This E-mail and any attachments contain privileged and confidential
information. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or
agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, be aware
that any dissemination or copying of this E-mail is prohibited. If you
have received this E-mail in error, please notify us immediately by
returning it to the sender and deleting this copy from your system.
Thank you for your cooperation.
********************
To unsubscribe, send a message to: <Email Address Redacted> with
the words UNSUB OANDP-L in the body of the
message.
If you have a problem unsubscribing,or have other
questions, send e-mail to the moderator
Paul E. Prusakowski,CPO at <Email Address Redacted>
OANDP-L is a forum for the discussion of topics
related to Orthotics and Prosthetics.
Public commercial postings are forbidden. Responses to inquiries
should not be sent to the entire oandp-l list. Professional credentials
or affiliations should be used in all communications.
Citation
Meredith Goins, “ACA President/CEO on NPR's Marketplace,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 1, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/226577.
