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Home Remicade infusions- pros/cons/ your experience?

I am looking for your thoughts and experiences. Insurance has said they will not reauthorize his current site and I think they are pushing home infusions.
 

Maya142

Moderator
Staff member
I will tag some parents whose college-age kids have had them - Jmrogers4 and crohnsinct.
 

crohnsinct

Well-known member
O does home infusions and she loves it. I think the older kids really like that it disrupts their day less because lets face it they have better things to do with their time than take care of their health:boring:

There are home infusion providers who specialize in Remicade. As a matter of fact, O's provider only does Remicade and iron infusions.

It is way cheaper so helps with co-pays if that is a concern.

Customer service with our provider is usually excellent.

Also, once you are set up with a home provider they can do infusions anywhere, so if you go on vacation to another town they can send a local nurse there to do it.

Con - they don't typically draw for lab work so they have to drag out to a lab and have that done. But even with that O says it is MUCH more convenient.

Con - nurse flaked once on O and didn't show up the day of infusion. Luckily she didn't take the Remicade out of the fridge. If she had it might have been ruined and they would pay for it and fed ex her another vial but she was getting on a plane the day after and it could have been a real pain.
 
Pretty much ditto what CIC says, it is much more convenient. He was able to schedule around finals. He also did not take a car to college so it's really nice having them come to him. Also makes sure he stays on schedule since they call him a couple of days beforehand to schedule a time.

His last infusion just before he came home for break they messed up on his meds and didn't ship the steroids, they ended up overnighting and it was delayed from 3:30 one day to 8:30 the following morning. Could have been taken care of right away had he checked what was in the box when he got the delivery but lesson learned.

Yes, labs are a pain, luckily they have a lab on campus since it's a medical oriented college he is attending but then we had to go have labs done when he was on Imuran.
 
It's a home health agency but it is an infusion nurse they send out and at least with my kiddo it's always the same nurse (he may be the only one employed by the home health company though, it's a pretty small town). We go through Option Care as main provider and they contract with local home health, which is how we're able to have at a different location if we're on vacation or something like Crohnsinct says.
 
My son has used Nufactor for 2 years and they have been excellent. Truly amazing service. Now insurance changed and choices are cvs coram, option care and Accredo. Option care can’t promise they can find nurses in our area; they don’t contract w nurses — just have employees. Any thoughts on these home infusion providers? Thanks!
 

crohnsinct

Well-known member
We used NuFactor also and Loved them but when O had to switch to Entyvio we had to move to Option Care and they are even better! They told O the same thing about her area but they ended up finding a nurse to work per diem. the money they make on drug delivery is too much to let a client slip through their fingers.

Sending positive nurse vibes your way.
 
Thank you very much for the + vibes and this info! I was on the phone w the nurse, the companies, and insurance all afternoon. 39 minutes into a call w insurance, the call disconnected and they did not call me back. I am at square 1. I’m ready for a strong drink and I rarely ever drink...
 
We use option care and they are contacted with a home health care in his college town. When it's time for infusion he calls option care and they overnight the meds and he calls the home health care and sets up the time for the infusion. All the billing is done through option care
 
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