On May 2, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed Senate Bill 203 (SB 203) into law! This important bill stops insurance plans from requiring patients to go through step therapy for their medication if they previously went through step therapy protocols with their current or former insurer.
Step therapy, or ‘fail first,’ requires patients to try and fail a series of medications, typically cheaper drugs, before the insurance plan will cover the medication their health care provider originally prescribed. The bill increases access to care for arthritis patients by limiting step therapy practices in Colorado. Specifically, an insurer will not be allowed to require patients to go through step therapy if they already completed step therapy for the same drug, either with their current or former insurance provider…
We would like to thank Senator Nancy Todd, Representative Chris Kennedy and Representative Phil Covarrubias for their leadership in sponsoring the bill. The sponsors and their staff worked with stakeholders from the very start to ensure that step therapy protocols would be addressed by the Colorado legislature in 2017.