CMS Holds Off on Radiation Reimbursement Cuts in New Proposed Fee Schedule

On July 3, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed rates for the 2015 physician fee schedule that would have cut radiation oncology payments by 4 percent and community-based radiation therapy centers by 6 to 8 percent. The proposal most significantly impacting radiation oncology would have removed the radiation treatment vault as a direct practice expense input from radiation treatment procedure codes. On October 31, CMS announced that they would not be implementing these cuts. The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) strongly fought against these changes as detrimental for patient access to radiation therapy. They applauded CMS' decision and also thanked radiation oncology’s congressional champions for working with CMS to protect cancer patients’ access to radiation therapy across the country. More than 160 bipartisan Senators and Representatives, led by Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), as well as Reps. Joe Pitts (R-Penn.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Gary Tonko (D-N.Y.), agreed with ASTRO and sent several letters in September 2014 to CMS expressing serious concerns about the proposed Medicare payment cuts. Many commentators also responded to CMS. They reiterated their rationale for inclusion of the radiation treatment vault as a direct practice expense input, asserting that the vault is necessary for the functioning of the equipment, serves a unique medical need, ca...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs