shot of emily harvey running with a
prosthetic leg she speaks to the camera
from the park i'm emily harvey i'm a
disability rights attorney a triathlete
an amputee many people struggle to get
appropriate prosthetic limbs because
they're expensive and insurance
companies often provide an adequate
coverage family running people gain and
lose weight parts where out and if
you're like me and you lose a limb at a
young age you need a new leg pretty much
every year I met up with Zach Harvey to
talk about some of these issues shots of
Zack building prosthetics back is the
process that creative orthotic and
prosthetic solutions in denver and he
also happens to be my husband
the costs associated with the prosthesis
is dependent on a number of things the
technology that we choose to use the
level of amputation if we use something
with a microprocessor and it that's
going to be more expensive so i could
range anywhere from 5,000 50,000 which a
lot of people look at that cost and I
think wow i could buy a car for that
amount of money so Medicare they can be
a little slow to adopt new technology
shot of high-tech artificial hand they
want to make sure that there's evidence
behind some the new products coming out
the problem is that there's not a lot of
research being done and so it might be
years before Medicare will start paying
for some of the newer devices Medicaid
generally pays pretty low because of the
low reimbursement a lot of times
conditions are choosing cheaper products
in place of better more expensive
products due to low reimbursement with
Medicaid private insurance generally
follow suit with medicare guidelines
except that there's often exclusions
built into the insurance policies shot a
man with two prosthetic legs for example
they might have exclusions on multiple
devices they might have exclusions on
microprocessor devices it can take a
long time that with private insurance
companies to get the patient's what they
need the Miller speaks from Zacks office
next to sort of prosthetic links
insurance has been a battle
it's definitely so far they projected
all legs i met up with alina to talk
about her experiences since losing a
limb earlier this year including her
ability to access what she needs
currently I think i can get one every
three
shot exact adjustable in his leg with a
small tool and I mean it's hard with
this first year because I'm constantly
shrinking and having to change and my
insurance hasn't covered any of it it's
running really incredibly important to
have such like a good leg I mean I'm
young I'm 26 and really active and if I
can't have a leg or can't even have a
leg that meets my needs
then it changes my quality of life
drastically it's really important to me
to have coverage and then be ample tap
coverage with the doctors that I want to
and I want to be able to see my regular
prospectus now that I formed this you
know relationship you can't just leave
it's like a breakup shot of Zack
consulting alina they rely on us to take
care of them and we have limitations
because of insurance companies and
coverage that they can't get shots of
Emily running access the prosthetic
limbs can be tough this issue affects
the roughly 2 million people in the US
who have lived loss
additionally there are approximately 185
thousand people who have a limb
amputated every year so this issue isn't
going away
I believe that access to healthcare
including adequate prosthetic limb is a
human right that we all deserve written
and directed by emily harvey special
thanks to that car vianna Miller for
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