Sequestration hitting rural cancer clinics
The Washington Post recently reported that cancer clinics are beginning to turn away Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts. The reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially. According to the Huffington Post, some cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials in rural areas will have to travel thousands of miles to continue treatment because of the across-the-board cuts. The director of the last private cancer clinic in Kalispell, Mont. says these funding cuts from sequestration have made it too expensive for many to continue chemotherapy there, and patients may have to travel to Washington, D.C. or Boston to continue their care.