Transgender people across the country face discrimination and other barriers to care which can make it difficult to achieve their health care goals. These barriers are there for New Yorkers, too, and came up during a HCFANY-led focus group looking into how LGBTQ+ New Yorkers are affected by medical debt.  Participants described high medical bills after coverage denials for gender-affirming care – despite plans covering these same procedures, like hormone therapy, for cis patients. The discussion also found that LGBTQ+ New Yorkers are still paying out-of-pocket for surprise bills, even as they should be protected under New York’s Surprise Bill Law.

LGBTQ+ New Yorkers should know that they can get support from the State and from advocates if they experience discrimination in the health care system. New York State requires coverage for all gender-affirming treatment and last year required NYS-regulated insurance carriers to develop evidence-based medical necessity criteria for gender-affirming care. All plans are required to submit their criteria to the State for approval and in June the State announced that carriers are complying with the requirements. This is important because it means medical necessity decisions are more standardized and if anything goes wrong, plan members have documentation of what the plan was supposed to do. Until the State required it, many plans had no written policies on gender-affirming care. When they did, their policies didn’t always match medical best practices and categorized necessary treatments as cosmetic.

In its “Health Coverage Information for Transgender New Yorkers” guide, the state describes the process for appealing denials or filing complaints with the state when your rights have been violated. You can also get help from programs like the Community Health Advocates. They can help you no matter what type of insurance you have. Fighting to get health care you need can be exhausting and painful – if you want help, you don’t have to take on the entire burden by yourself.

CHA advocates can also help with the surprise bills that so many focus group participants described. These billing problems included bills that are clearly covered under New York’s Surprise Bill law and receiving multiple bills of varying amounts for one service. One participant received a medical bill that was so unclear she could not find contact information to pay it, even after multiple calls to the hospital where she received care. Another described conversations with their providers’ billing office as feeling “like a tennis ball being bounced around different courts.”  

New York should continue to monitor insurance policies on gender-affirming care and ensure that plans who violate coverage requirements are held accountable. It should also make sure that consumer assistance programs like CHA are fully funded so that patients have support dealing with unclear and unfair medical bills.