Taking an Experimental Drug Could Jeopardize Your Health Insurance

Could terminally ill patients get booted from insurance coverage—and get stuck with large medical bills—for seeking access to experimental medicines? It’s a real possibility.

Right-to-try laws—which give terminally ill patients access to drugs that haven’t been approved by the FDA—in 19 states allow insurers to deny hospice care coverage if the patient tried a drug through right-to-try, and some states’ laws allow insurers to deny all coverage, even for conditions unrelated to the drugs used under right to try, a researcher in New York University’s medical ethics division told Bloomberg Law.

Seven states allow insurers to deny coverage for in-home ...