The Story:
Tori Geib passed away on Nov. 1. She had been diagnosed five years before with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. That means the diagnosis came only after the disease had spread to other organs, including in her case the spine and brain.
Significance:
Geib made herself, within the time allotted her after that diagnosis, into an effective advocate for a wider range of patient choices, especially in her home state of Ohio.
The law in Ohio formally required that less expensive treatments for cancer be attempted first, and that those treatments must fail before more expensive approaches can be adopted. This “fail first” rule is unsurprisingly a desideratum of health insurance companies.
On December 1, 2020, due largely to Geib’s efforts, Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law Senate Bill 252, prohibiting fail-first drug coverage policies for stage 4 metastatic cancer patients.
In Pill Form:
That victory was too late to save Ms Geib’s own life. As she said, “My cancer could have been stabilized. Knowing that the science was there and everything was lined up except for the insurance … it almost seems criminal to do that to people.”
During her time as a patients’ choice advocate, Geib was featured in many national news outlets, including Time Magazine, Everyday Health, People magazine, and Good Housekeeping.
