{"id":27345,"date":"2024-05-18T02:38:20","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T07:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27345"},"modified":"2024-05-18T02:38:28","modified_gmt":"2024-05-18T07:38:28","slug":"new-menopause-drugs-treat-hot-flashes-but-women-may-face-insurance-hurdles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27345","title":{"rendered":"New menopause drugs treat hot flashes, but women may face insurance hurdles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New drugs to treat debilitating menopause symptoms \u2014 namely hot flashes \u2014 are finally on the market or are in development. But doctors say insurance companies either won\u2019t pay for them or make women try and fail with other, perhaps less effective, drugs before they do.
The conundrum has left women who might benefit from the new drugs at the mercy of health insurance companies.
\u201cIt\u2019s not like a doctor can write a prescription and you go to the pharmacy and pick it up,\u201d said Alina Salganicoff, senior vice president and director of women\u2019s health policy at KFF, a nonprofit health policy research\u00a0organization. \u201cNew drugs tend to cost a lot of money, and insurance plans can be very reluctant to cover them.\u201d
Hormone replacement therapy is often recommended during menopause, but some women, such as breast cancer patients, can\u2019t take it because the added hormones could fuel their cancer.
Newer drugs, however, have nothing to do with hormones.
On Thursday, Bayer announced that its nonhormonal drug, elinzanetant, \u201csignificantly\u201d reduced the number and severity of hot flashes \u2014 intense bursts of body heat that can occur day or night \u2014 among women in clinical trials. Elinzanetant works by targeting two receptors in the brain. One, called NK-3, regulates body temperature. The other, NK-1, also affects mood and sleep.
Indeed, participants said they slept better during the time they were on the pill in the trial.
Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton,\u00a0a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and the director of the Midlife Health Center at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, led one of the elinzanetant trials.
\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen the full data,\u201d she said, but \u201cit did work very well to reduce frequency and severity of hot flashes. It improved sleep, and it improved overall quality of life.\u201d
Bayer said it plans to submit its data to the Food and Drug Administration this year. If it\u2019s approved, it would be the second nonhormonal drug for hot flashes.
Last year, the FDA greenlighted the Astellas\u00a0drug\u00a0fezolinetant, sold as Veozah. It targets NK-3, the receptor that controls body temperature.\u00a0Ongoing research\u00a0recently found that it can reduce hot flashes for nearly six months.
Celebrities have begun to speak publicly about the condition, which once seemed taboo, even though it\u2019s experienced by about half of the population.
Earlier this month, for example, actor Halle Berry screamed, \u201cI\u2019m in menopause!\u201d at a media event on Capitol Hill to help unveil a congressional\u00a0bill to boost menopause care.
\u201cMenopause is having a moment,\u201d said Dr. Rajita Patil, director of the Comprehensive Menopause Care Program at UCLA Health in California. \u201cBut it really should have happened well before this. It\u2019s not like menopause is some new diagnosis.\u201d
Still, some insurance companies are reluctant to pay for newer menopause therapies. Kaiser Permanente, for example, requires women to try at least two other drugs that haven\u2019t been approved by the FDA to treat hot flashes before they switch to Veozah (fezolinetant),\u00a0which can cost at least $550 for a month\u2019s supply. Those drugs can include off-label use of the pain medication gabapentin or an antidepressant sold as Effexor.
\u201cWomen are being asked to try drugs that are not specifically FDA-approved for management of hot flashes before they get to a drug that actually is FDA-approved to treat hot flashes,\u201d said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director of the North American Menopause Society and director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women\u2019s Health. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating.\u201d
Pinkerton said, \u201cI think that most providers feel hampered in their ability to just decide what the best medication is for their patients.\u201d
Bayer wouldn\u2019t disclose elinzanetant\u2019s price until the FDA clears it. It could cost as much as or more than Veozah, analysts suggest.
Cindy Laughery, 60, a pediatric organ transplant nurse at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, started having hot flashes and trouble sleeping \u2014 hallmark signs of menopause \u2014 about six years ago.
\u201cI would turn really red and perspire really bad,\u201d Laughery said. \u201cPeople would stop me and ask if I was OK.\u201d
She felt those sudden bursts of heat at least 10 to 15 times a day, she said. It took hours for her to fall asleep at night. She signed up for Bayer\u2019s elinzanetant trial.
It was a \u201clife changer,\u201d Laughery said. Her hot flashes became rare. When they did occur, they were much milder.
\u201cIt was a revelation,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of a sudden feeling like \u2018wow, I can get up and I feel really good.\u2019\u201d
While Laughery said she didn\u2019t feel any negative side effects, Pinkerton said the drug was associated with fatigue, headache and muscle aches in some study participants.
Salganicoff of KFF offers these tips:
Go to your insurance company\u2019s website and search for your medication. The site should tell you the exact steps to take for drug coverage.
\uf0b7Contact your doctor\u2019s office. Physicians often receive coupons or have insider knowledge about drug discounts. They can also act as patient advocates.
\uf0b7Flex your patient rights and appeal insurance denials. \u201cJust because the first answer is \u2018no\u2019 doesn\u2019t mean that that\u2019s the final answer,\u201d Salganicoff said. \u201cThis is where persistence pays off.\u201d
nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New drugs to treat debilitating menopause symptoms \u2014 namely hot flashes \u2014 are finally on the market or are in development. But doctors say insurance companies either won\u2019t pay for them or make women try and fail with other, perhaps less effective, drugs before they do.The conundrum has left women who might benefit from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5784],"tags":[28456,1756,24451,28455,22756,1305],"class_list":["post-27345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-hot-flashes","tag-insurance","tag-medication","tag-menopause","tag-treatments","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27347,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27345\/revisions\/27347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}