Alyse now has a $5,000 deductible before her insurance will cover any of her IG therapy in addition to copays she has to pay until she meets her out-of-pocket maximum of $10,000. Over the last few years, however, the out-of-pocket cost for her IG therapy has increased due to a higher deductible plan. Until recently, Alyse’s insurance plan covered much of the cost, assessing a manageable $50 per month as a copayment. A single infusion can cost as much as $20,000.
Immune globulin is made from donated human plasma and is very expensive. Now, Alyse can live more normally without fear of contracting the kind of severe infections that once made her chronically sick. These treatments, which she gets intravenously every four weeks, replace the important immune proteins her body is missing. When Alyse was finally diagnosed properly, her immunologist started her on immune globulin (IG) therapy. For PIDD patients, a part of the immune system is missing or doesn’t function properly, opening the person to all types of potentially dangerous infections. When she was hospitalized with her second bout of pneumonia in one year, her primary care doctor referred her to an immunologist who diagnosed her with common variable immune deficiency (CVID).ĬVID is one of more than 450 rare, chronic conditions called primary immune deficiency diseases (PIDD) that are caused by a hereditary defect in the way the body fights infections. As a child, she often spent much of the winter with colds, sinus infections, and ear infections, which were treated with antibiotics. Alyse has always been the one to come down with every infectious disease that’s going around.
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