♫ pleasant, upbeat music ♫
Emily: I'm Emily Harvey.
I'm a disability rights attorney,
a triathlete, and an amputee.
Many people struggle to get
appropriate prosthetic limbs
because they're expensive, and insurance companies
often provide inadequate coverage.
People gain and lose weight.
Parts wear out,
and if you're like me and you lose a limb at a young age,
you need a new leg pretty much every year.
I met up with Zach Harvey
to talk about some of these issues.
Zach is a Prosthetist at
Creative Orthotics and Prosthetics Solutions in Denver,
and he also happens to be my husband.
Zach: The cost associated with the prosthesis
is dependent on a number of things.
The technology that we choose to use,
the level of amputation,
if we use something with a microprocessor in it,
that's gonna be more expensive.
So it could range anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000.
Uh, which, a lot of people look at
that cost and they think,
"Wow. I could buy a car for that amount of money."
(tires screech)
So, Medicare, they can be a little slow
to adopt new technology.
They wanna make sure that there's evidence behind
some of the new products coming out.
The problem is, is there's not a lot of
research being done, and so,
it might be years before Medicare
will start paying for some of the newer devices.
Medicaid generally pays pretty low.
Because of the low reimbursement,
a lot of times, clinicians are choosing
cheaper products in place of better, more expensive
products, due to low reimbursement with Medicaid.
Private insurance generally follows suit
with Medicare guidelines,
except that there's often exclusions built in
to the insurance policies.
Zach: For example, they might have exclusions
on multiple devices.
They might have exclusions on
microprocessor devices.
It can take a long time with
private insurance companies to get
the patients what they need.
Alina: Insurance has been a battle.
It's definitely, so far, they've rejected all legs.
Emily: I met up with Alina to talk about her experiences
since losing a limb earlier this year,
including her ability to access what she needs.
Alina: Currently, I think I can get one every three years.
And, I mean, it's hard with this first year
because I'm constantly shrinking and having to change,
and my insurance hasn't covered any of it.
So, (laughs)
It's, I mean, really, incredibly important
to have such, like, a good leg.
I mean, I'm young, I'm 26,
I'm really active and if I can't have a leg,
or can't even have a leg that meets my needs,
then it changes my quality of life drastically.
So it's really important to me to have coverage,
and then be able to have coverage
with the doctors that I want, too.
'Cause I wanna be able to see my regular prosthetist
now that I've formed this, ya know, relationship.
You can't just leave.
It's like a break up.
(laughs)
Zach: They rely on us to take of them and we
have limitations because of insurance companies,
and coverage that they can't get.
Emily: Access to prosthetic limbs can be tough.
This issue affects roughly two million people in the U.S.
who have limb loss.
Additionally, there are approximately 185,000 people
who have a limb amputated every year,
so this issue isn't going away.
I believe that access to health care,
including adequate prosthetic limbs
is a human right that we all deserve.
Written and directed by Emily Harvey.
Special thanks to Zach Harvey and Alina Miller.
For more videos from Storytellers like me,
visit RootedinRights.org
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♫ pleasant, upbeat music ♫