After her mastectomy in April Alantheia Pena cried for the loss of her breast. Her partner told her not to worry about flat spot on its chest, but she could tell it bothered him when he looked away as she took off her shirt.
It was a friendly Secretary where she went to get his prosthesis, an artificial breasts fill her clothes, who noticed her cry and told her that she could have her breast cancer was reconstructed with health insurance that covers costs. Ms. Pena said his cancer surgeon had told her.
A law on State was signed Sunday by Gov David a. Paterson now require New York hospitals and doctors to discuss options for breast cancer reconstruction with their patients before cancer surgery, providing them with information on insurance and to refer them to another hospital, where it is needed for reconstructive surgery.
The law came largely through the efforts of Dr. Evan Garfein, plastic surgeon at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx who gave Ms. Pena, who turns 48 next week, a new breast, which made her so happy she wore a bikini last month for the first time in his life.
"It gave me back my life," said Ms. Pena, running H.I.V. Ministry of Friendship Baptist Church in Brooklyn and lives in the Bronx, on Wednesday. "It's like my breasts. It is beautiful. It is perfect. It is a perfect breasts. "
Dr. Garfein, who specializes in reconstructive surgery after breast cancer, head and neck cancer, said he had pushed for the law after a friend of his, Dr. Caprice Christian Greenberg, wrote a document showing that the poor, minority women were much less likely to get breast cancer reconstruction after cancer than better-off women.
Congress guaranteed universal coverage for breast cancer reconstruction after cancer surgery in 1998. But Dr. Garfein said that only 30-40% of women who have had mastectomies now breast cancer reconstruction.
Dr. Garfein said the number would be closer to 75% if more women were informed of their options. Ms. Pena, covered by Medicaid, had his surgery at North General Hospital in Harlem, which is disused, but she said his doctors had never discussed breast reconstruction with her.
One reason for the low proportion of reconstruction, Dr. Garfein said, be shortage of plastic surgeons outside of large academic medical centres, and another can be financial. Medicaid pays about $ 11,000 to $ 15,000 to the hospital and $ 540 to the surgeon, according to Montefiore.
Repayment can vary from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars with private insurance, and some patients may have entire costs covered, while others may have to pay 30 percent, according to Dr. Scott Breidbart, Medical Director of Empire BlueCross BlueShield.
Ms. Pena is still recovering from cancer, but with her new breasts, she said, "at the end of it, you see some kind of rainbow".
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