Still Waiting

Back in December I reported that the Medicare Appeals Board found that the ban on trans-healthcare was not based on medical fact and said it should be covered. At First Event I talked to someone who said that Medicare would not contest the Appeals Board findings and that we would have coverage within 90 days which would make it in April. It looks like she was a little off.

HHS Expected To Lift Blanket Medicare Ban On Sex-Reassignment Surgery Soon
An HHS review board will soon make a ruling. A major change with potentially far-reaching consequences.
BuzzFeed
By Evan McMorris-Santoro
Posted on May 1, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services is expected to end Medicare’s blanket ban on sex-reassignment surgery at the end of a panel review, according to sources familiar with the process.

Because Medicare guides many insurance industry decisions, eliminating the blanket ban on the procedure could have significant consequences in the private health insurance market for the transgender community, transgender rights advocates say.

Medicare has for decades considered sex-reassignment surgery “experimental,” despite opposition from many major medical professional associations and LGBT advocates, who say the ban denies necessary care to transgender people. The private insurance industry has also been slow to adopt coverage options for sex-reassignment surgery and related care, something advocates say stems from the Medicare ban.

The article goes on to say,

On Feb. 25, the HHS Departmental Appeals Board issued an interim ruling, spurring a 90-day window until the board makes its final ruling on the challenge, or announces an extension of the review period is needed.

I don’t understand where the February date came from since the Appeals Board posted their findings on December 2^nd but the February date will mean that by the end of May they will have to cover medically necessary treatments for trans-people.