New to forum just started Harvoni

[amy1662]

Hello everyone, I am new to this forum, I just started Harvoni Monday, this is day three for me. I am feeling pretty good no side affects as of yet. I was really surprised how quickly I was approved for Harvoni because I had been denied for Sovaldi/Olysio before this great drug was on the market. My insurance denied me for two reasons. One they claimed I had failed a prior treatment with incivek which was not true because I had never taken incivek. The other reason was that they found it to be medically unnecessary to treat at this time in other words I was not sick enough to warrant treatment. My doctor straightened out the incivek mistake filed an appeal which was again denied. At this point we both decided not to go forward with any more appeals because of the news that this new drug Harvoni was about to be released. My doctor felt that it may be easier to get an approval because it would most likely be cheaper than the prior treatment. I thought for sure I would be in for a fight and was shocked to see it approved. I was also a surprise when I was notified by the pharmacy that I was approved for a discount through Gilead that would be applied to my copay which is now only five dollars. Somewhere someone advocated this for me. I went from being medically unnecessary to treat to being treated, makes no sense although I am happy. I feel for anyone who is fighting their insurance companies to get these drugs because no one should be turned down who harbor a potentially serious disease such as this. When I initially got denied I was devastated. I started to become very depressed thinking that the insurance company was going to wait for me to become sick with possible irreversible liver damage before they would allow me access to the medicine I need. I have had this disease for about 25 years type 1a no cirrhosis but do have hep c related joint and muscle issues. I was last treated in 2002 with interferon and Ribavirin for one year. I had zero virus detection at the end but it came back within a few months. This is the first time I have been treated since I failed all those years ago. I just want to say I pray that each and every one of you gets access to the medications that are  needed to beat this so we can all go on and lead a healthy happy life.  It hurts me when I hear the issues others are having trying to get approved for this medicine because its just not right. Thank you for listening, I wish you all a healthy happy holiday, sincerely, Amy

[BattleTheBeast]

Hi Amy,

Welcome! I hope your battle ends with the Harvoni! We are all here to support each other through this and have all dealt with some craziness. I think it's part of the process but as long as we continue to fight and the new drugs continue to help us fight we will all win!

Stay Strong and looking forward to your updates

~Mel~