Like the growing number of us in the chat room who are on the DMT Ocrevus, the cost for the drug and the infusion can become totally overwhelming. The medicine prices for MS run extremely high. Most of us are not in a position to have a spare $50,000 to $60,000 a month to spend on our MS DMT. I pray that most of you understand that you need to go through your doctor's office to ask the manufacturer of ocrevus for copay assistance for the drug itself. It normally is available if you simply ask unless you are from an extremely wealthy family.
The second part of the cost equation is the cost that racks up when taking the infusion itself. To go to a hospital and go to an infusion center and be there for some place between 4 to 6 hours with a nursing staff watching you the cost runs up into double digits very quickly. I know that there were many people in the chat room who were asking questions if assistance was available on the actual infusion itself. And if there was assistance where could it be found. I have some information to pass along that might be useful to any and all who are currently on ocrevus and who are looking for help with the infusion portion of the drug.
Jes spoke to Emily, and per Emily @ MSAA, the client Services team there recommendation is to try contacting the patients assistance program with the drug company, Genentech. Genentech access Solutions can be found at 1 - 844- 627- 3887.
There are also multiple nonprofit organizations out there that assist people that suffer from many different chronic illnesses with their medication Etc. There are four different non-profit organizations that accept MS patients as part of their assistance program. Now before I pass the phone numbers and names along I want to stress that these are nonprofit organizations and all the money they have to give out are done through grants or donations. So there is only a limited amount of money that is available for MS patients depending on donations and grant to the MS fund. So they fill up quick and they have no more spots or money available to give out if you wait very long to check on them. I would be making some phone calls and checking to see when their year opens to request for assistance with MS infusions. The process of getting the grant is not very difficult but the process of finding one of these nonprofit organizations with money left in their MS fund can be difficult. So call them all and find out when they start accepting names for MS copay assistance with infusions and get on their list. Here goes the list:
Help Well @ 1-800-675-8416.
Patient Access Network or PAN Foundation Org. @ 1-866-316-7263.
Patient Advocate Foundation @ 1-866-512-3861.
The Assistance Fund @ 1-877-245-4412.
To give you an example the Patient Advocate Foundation funds for Ms were gone this year by April 2nd of 2018. They don't hang around long so call early in the year. The last idea I have is that this year I actually got assistance through the hospital that I had my infusion at.
It seems that hospitals are starting to realize how important assistances is for chronic illnesses and offering it to make sure that everyone has access to the medicines they need. I had already contacted all the non-profit organizations and none of them have funds left for any MS Infusion in 2018. I was rather upset and thought I couldn't afford to have the Ocrevus infusion start. My MS Nurse Coordinator in my doctor's office then told me to contact the hospital that I do my infusion at and go through their Patient Assistance Office and check on getting copay assistance with them for my infusion. Well it worked. They didn't quite cover all the cost but they cover a very large majority of it. This assistance helped to make the infusion affordable and allowed me to keep me on the therapy I needed to be on. There are always new nonprofit organizations popping up. So if you call the ones listed above only to find their MS funds are gone, always ask them if they know of anyone else out there that you might get assistance from.
The only thing I asked if you if you get additional nonprofit organizations phone numbers please pass them along to the rest of the chat room. That way if anybody else is still searching for assistance they can try them as well. I hope this information helps and if I come upon any other I will be sure and pass it along. Remember together we are stronger! Fancy.
Written by
Fancy1959
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
You're very welcome. It takes some work but there is money out there if you start early enough in the year. I would check with the hospital you use also because I think their money is more readily available than nonprofits. Fancy.
Kdali, you're very welcome. Check with your hospital that the infusion is at cuz I believe their money is more readily available than nonprofits. Hope it helps. Fancy.
Kdali, I sure will check on that cost beforehand to make sure you know what it is. The bill I received before the financial assistance was applied was just over $18,000 just for the infusion. That might be pocket change for the filthy rich but that sure isn't pocket change for me and most of us with this chronic illness! Fancy
Thank you for the helpful info Fancy! I’ve been approved for free Ocrevus and my patient navigator is contacting the infusion center to see what my out of pocket cost would be. I am hoping that I will not have to rely on any of the grants but it is great info to have, just in case. Thanks again!! 😊
Luckymomx2, I'm glad I could help. Have your doctor's office or patient Navigator check with the hospital you're having the infusion out to see if they have any patient assistant programs. The hospitals seem to have more money available then the nonprofits. Hope it helps. Fancy.
I was getting asst. from the assistance fund for my old med. when I got Ocrevus my insurance picked it up, so I called TAF. and told them I was changing, they ask me if I needed help with that,which I told them no, so that money was left there for someone else.My dr office told me probably all I had to do there was tell them I was changing, as far as I can tell they were right.Taf told me to contact them if I need asstance in the future,they were very good to me the past 2 yr
If you get approved for assistance, keep applying every year! I just had my 3rd (1yr) infusion at the end of July. On 8/13 I received a letter from my insurance company saying they won't cover it. Now I am in the insurance hassle. But, I have the assistance fund, which I thought I didn't need anymore. Praying it will all work out.
Thanks for your post, Fancy1959 . I've been on Ocrevus a little over a year now, so two half-dose infusions and two full infusions - PLUS a wasted dose that was disposed of when I had a severe reaction and my doctor told the infusion nurses to stop with only 1/6th of the dose delivered. I've never had to pay a cent for any of my infusions, never had any trouble whatsoever getting insurance to cover it, and most of the people I speak with have had a similar experience. The sticker price may be a shock, but Genentech is extremely generous with their payment assistance program, and often provides the drug at no charge to patients with annual income less than 100k. There is an enormous Ocrevus FB group with 6,000+ members and dozens of posts have addressed the cost and out of all those people, very few have had any difficulty getting most or all of the cost covered by insurance and/or Genentech. Don't panic at the published cost or even what is initially billed - unless you are extremely wealthy you are likely to end up paying a tiny fraction of that, if anything at all. I received a bill from my medical center for $197,000 for my first full dose, if you can believe that. Adjusted final cost? Zero. (Whew/!)
Fancy thank you for this information on assistance for Ocrevus & infusions I think I will be getting the Ocrevus I saw the MS Specialist today & that's what we talked about. They will handle all the insurance stuff & I will know something in the next couple of weeks. Thanks again Mary
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
First Ocrevus Infusion 
1st Ocrevus infusion today! 
First Ocrevus Infusion Today
