A federal judge has ordered Washington state’s Medicaid provider to cover expensive hepatitis C drugs for all patients with the liver-destroying disease, not just those who are sickest.
U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour granted a preliminary injunction Friday that forces the state Health Care Authority (HCA) to halt a 2015 policy that restricted access to the drugs based on a fibrosis score, a measure of liver scarring.
The injunction was a response to a class-action lawsuit filed in February on behalf of two clients of Apple Health — and nearly 28,000 other Medicaid enrollees with hepatitis C.
The two patients, a 53-year-old Seattle woman and a 47-year-old Lakewood man, were prescribed the drug Harvoni to treat their hepatitis C infections. But they were denied the drug, which costs about $95,000 for a 12-week treatment, because of its cost, the complaint said.
Harvoni is among the newest highly effective drugs that can halt the hepatitis C virus, posting a cure rate of at least 90 percent.
The injunction orders HCA to begin covering Harvoni “without regard
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