AUSTIN, Texas -- Cancer is a diagnosis no one wants to get. It comes with undergoing treatment, fighting to beat it, and it takes a toll on you and your loved ones. The financial cost of treatment is its own battle. Now there's a new law meant to help breast cancer patients beat steep out-of-pocket costs, just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
- New law eliminates out-of-pocket mammograms costs
- Aim to improve access and allow for more timely diagnoses
- Bill authored by San Antonio's Rep. Diego Bernal
And as hundreds of Texans race for a cure each year, Dawn Lindsey is trying to stay cancer-free. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018.
"I was so terrified, I didn't even tell anyone. I didn't even tell my parents," Lindsey said.
It was a troubling yearly mammogram that led Lindsey to get what's called a diagnostic test. It caught her cancer.
"And the next morning I got the call," she said.
The lifesaving scan can cost upwards of $1,000. Suzanne Stone with Susan G. Komen in Austin says she regularly fields phone calls from women who can't afford it.
"These are women who are working, they just don't make enough money to have insurance, but they make too much money to qualify any assistance," said Stone.
But now, a new law in Texas totally eliminates the out-of-pocket costs associated with diagnostic mammograms for breast cancer patients and survivors. It's an effort to improve access and allow more timely diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
"Not having to have a co-pay is just one less thing I have to worry about," said Lindsey.
And that's the idea: to help relieve some of the financial burden.
"It's a matter of support," said Lindsey.
So people like Lindsey and the ones racing can focus on beating their diagnosis.
On Saturday, the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio will be lit pink to celebrate the passage of this bill. The bill's author, Rep. Diego Bernal, is from the Alamo City. He pushed this bill for three sessions before it became law.