Open Letter from our CEO on Monoclonal Antibody Treatments
September 8, 2022
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Ivan Islamaj, and I am a medical provider and owner of a growing mobile urgent care called iCare Mobile Medicine. We provide medical care to patients’ homes in the South Florida region, including Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.
Our clinic has been heavily involved with the battle against COVID-19. We have mitigated the risk of viral spread by treating and monitoring our patients in the comforts of their own homes. We volunteered our time in setting up mobile units and vaccinating the low socioeconomic communities. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we have administered 346 doses of the vaccines; treated 403 high risk COVID positive patients with monoclonal antibodies, such as Regeneron, Sotrovimab, or Bebtelovimab; and have protected 604 highly immunocompromised COVID negative patients with the monoclonal antibodies from Evusheld. I am very happy to report that all 403 COVID positive patients we treated with the monoclonal antibodies made a full recovery. We know this to be true because we follow-up with our patients daily until they have made a full recovery. This includes vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. Furthermore, 401 of the 403 patients were effectively kept out of the hospitals while safely recovering in their own homes—the 2 patients who did go to an ER, were monitored for a short period of time and discharged home, where they too made a full recovery.
We have recently come to learn that the federal government will no longer be distributing monoclonal antibody doses for COVID positive patients to medical providers and clinics. We have now been asked to purchase the doses out of our own pockets from the manufacturer directly, at a cost of $2,100 per dose. As a medical provider, I find this deeply concerning and short- sighted.
Most of our claims for reimbursement from private health insurances for the administration of the treatments have been denied for obscure reasons—a common trend among health insurances. This means the likelihood of being reimbursed an additional $2,100 per patient from insurance companies is even lower, and the doctors would risk losing thousands of dollars per patient. This alone effectively will stop the distribution of this treatment by most clinics and significantly reduce access to care. Large hospitals may be able to afford such a large overhead and risk. But the point of the monoclonal antibody treatment is to keep patients out of hospitals in the first place. The second concerning outcome from this decision is that the cost will eventually be passed down to the patient. The uninsured and underinsured patients certainly cannot afford a $2,100 treatment on top of the cost of the administration and medical evaluation.
When the average annual deductible for single individual coverage is over $4,000, even the insured patients will be left with a hefty price tag. As a result, most patients will simply refuse treatment, and many lives will be placed at risk.
Cutting funds on the single most effective lifesaving treatment is bad policy and dangerous. I want to emphasize again that 100% of our patients treated with the monoclonal antibodies made a full recovery from a disease that has killed millions, and 99.5% of them were safely and cost- effectively kept out of the hospitals. Abruptly commercializing this treatment without a contingency plan for the drawbacks, will result in lives lost, overburdened hospitals, and overall increase to healthcare spending when considering the cost of hospitalizations.
The last thing I did in my medical training is take an oath to be an advocate for my patients. So, I write to you today as an advocate for my patients to plead for your help: please do everything in your power to change this policy.
With gratitude,
Ivan Islamaj, PA-C, MMS CEO / Co-Founder
iCare Mobile Medicine