8 March 2017 - After pricey new hepatitis C treatments emerged a few years ago, public and private payers restricted coverage in order to ease the financial strain on budgets. 

But even as more competition among drug makers has prompted discounting, payers continue to deny coverage, including to patients who suffer from the most advanced forms of the disease, according to a new analysis.

As of last September, 37% of patients with little to moderate trace of the disease were denied coverage, a mostly steady increase from 27% in October 2015. Meanwhile, 24% of those severe forms of hepatitis C were denied, up from 15% during the same time period. These figures represent an overall trend that includes commercial and government payers.

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