© 2004 by Oxford University Press
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© 2004 Oxford University Press
NEWS |
New Medicare Bill Targets Discrepancies in Fees for Cancer Drugs, Outpatient Services
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The oncology community was sent reeling in late November after Congress passed, by the thinnest of margins, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, a bill that sought to provide a prescription drug benefit for seniors.
To make fiscal room for these benefits, which are scheduled to be in place by 2006, the bill mandated cuts in the current Medicare drug payment system. Some legislators with influence on the final draft of the bill chose to focus on the longstanding, lopsided system that overpays oncologists for chemotherapy drugs while chronically underpaying drug administration expenses. Many oncologists felt that this reimbursement cushion was needed to counteract serious shortfalls in Medicare payments to the private oncology clinics, which have become the main providers of cancer treatment and whose costs for treating patients has risen steadily.
Despite intense lobbying by oncology organizations, support groups, and industry, however, the bill that
Historically Lopsided
Affecting Rural Access
Some Gains
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J Natl Cancer Inst 2004 96: 168.
J Natl Cancer Inst 2004 96: 167.
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  A. M. Shea, L. H. Curtis, B. G. Hammill, L. D. DiMartino, A. P. Abernethy, and K. A. Schulman Association Between the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and Patient Wait Times and Travel Distance for Chemotherapy JAMA, July 9, 2008; 300(2): 189 - 196. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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