Progressive Orthotics and Prosthetics, Albertson, New York, announced that it, along with a group of interested parties, has launched a campaign to end restrictions in New York State that permit people with amputations to receive insurance coverage for only one prosthetic limb in his or her lifetime. Dan Bastian, CP, co-owner of Progressive O&P, has been helping to organize a petition drive to change the restriction and meeting with state legislators to bring the issue to their attention. “I wouldn’t be able to run my business, employ all these people, and coach my kid’s teams if I was limited to the first prosthetic I received,” said Bastian, who has a transfemoral amputation.
Progressive O&P said that New York State’s benchmark health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) limits coverage for prosthetic limbs to “one prosthesis per limb per lifetime”; children are exempt from this limitation, but 91 percent of the people with amputations in the state are adults. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is supposed to prohibit yearly or lifetime caps on essential health benefits (EHBs), the Progressive O&P press release reported.
Bastian’s group of O&P professionals, community activists, leaders of top disability and amputee associations, people living with limb loss, and those interested in fair practices have joined forces to create www.onelimbforlife.com. The website features an online petition to change New York’s “one prosthetic limb per lifetime” restriction. In just over two weeks more than 5,000 people have signed the petition.
