BILLS FOCUS ON WHO DECIDES ON TREATMENTS ONE-FOURTH OF PATIENTS NEEDING TREATMENT HAVE PAYMENT REJECTED BY THEIR HEALTH INSURERS.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: HARVY LIPMAN State editor

ALBANY Pat Felpham is alive and free of cancer.

If it had been up to her health insurance company, she wouldn't be.

In March of 1993, Felpham's doctors discovered that she had suffered a recurrence of the breast cancer that was first diagnosed in 1988. They told her she had only one chance: She would have to undergo extremely high-dose chemotherapy.

Because that treatment destroys the patient's immune system, it must be accompanied by a bone marrow transplant. While her health insurance policy covered chemotherapy, when Felpham's physician sent in the paperwork showing she needed the treatment, he got back a fax saying the treatment was ``notmedically necessary.''

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