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The
Cystic Fibrosis program was adopted and is
sponsored by America's Challenge Foundation
and was established in September of 1999. To assure and provide financial support to children,
young adults and their parents that do not have the financial resources to properly maintain adequate
care that is required to; pay for travel, lodging, pharmaceutical
expenses, some medical bills and personal living expense to improve the quality of life for those with CF disease.
While other Cystic Fibrosis
Foundations are focusing on funds for research and the prevention of Cystic Fibrosis,
America's Challenge is assisting the patient and the parent's in their day to
day existence.
To our knowledge, America's Challenge Foundation is the first to offer:
Direct financial support to the CF
patient and to their parent's.
Provide to the patient and
parent's a list of lodging facilities at or near the hospital where the patient will be
receiving care.
America's Challenge
Foundation depends upon public and corporate support to carry out its endeavors of direct financial
support and accommodating other areas of need in the journey of the CF patient and
parent's daily life.
MEDICARE COVERAGE FOR LUNG TRANSPLANTS
Medicare Assistance
A "HHS" secretary
for Medicare has announced that hospitals with documented experience and success in
performing lung transplants, may be covered providing the hospital can demonstrate quality
of services necessary for this procedure.
A notice setting forth the
requirements has been published in the Federal Register. Although the notice establishes a
national policy for Medicare coverage of lung transplants, the program has been paying for
that procedure when approved by Medicare contractors in individual cases.
The contractors health
insurance companies that administer the Medicare program in every state are authorized to
cover a procedure that they deem reasonable and medically necessary when a national
coverage policy has not been made.
Under the new rules, a
hospital applying for approval as a Medicare Lung Transplant Center must present data on
its lung transplants and outcomes for ten or more patients in each of the two previous
years. The hospital must document a one year survival rate of at least sixty nine percent
and a two year survival rate of sixty two percent for lung transplant patients.
A hospital will be required to
perform a minimum of ten lung transplants a year to retain its status in the Medicare
program. This mandate is designed to ensure that the transplant team maintains the skills
needed for quality performance.
The notice specifies that lung
transplant is a procedure to be used only when it would offer a patient a realistic chance
for recovery from end stage lung disease after all other therapies have failed.
Hospitals are required to have
written policies on selection of patients for lung transplants. The notice provides a list
of factors hospitals should consider in selecting patients to increase the odds for
successful outcomes.
There is a great body of
clinical evidence that lung transplants can produce good outcome when performed by
experienced medical teams on carefully selected patients.
The office of Health
Technology Assessment, in the Public Health Service’s Agency for Health Care Policy
and Research, studied lung transplants and found the procedure to be safe and effective in
treating end-stage lung disease. Similar findings were reported by the National Heart,
Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, PHS.
"Caring Hearts and
Helping Hands"
YES! I want to support
"America's Challenge Foundation" in their efforts to
aid directly the families and children with Cystic Fibrosis....A beautiful
silver certificate will be mailed to you showing you are a supporter of our
foundation.
Help Us! To Help Others; Make Your Donation Today!
All donations must be made in the
name of
"America's Challenge Foundation".
If your contribution is by check; please mail your check to:
America's Challenge Foundation
P.O. Box 890849
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73189-0849
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