Many have argued that Medicare changes will worsen cancer patients’ access to care in the community, outside of hospital and academic settings. The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) is attempting to document the impact and plans to present findings to members of Congress.
Community-based oncology practices can sign up on the COA website to participate in the data gathering. The 7-question form seeks information about whether a practice is referring out for chemotherapy due to Medicare changes, availability of chemotherapy administration facilities that do accept Medicare, whether patients have been denied medication through Medicare Part D, and whether a practice accepts Medicare patients at all. Practices are asked to specify the number of patients affected (eg, how many are referred for chemotherapy because of Medicare payment changes) and update this every week. Information will be used only in a statistical format.
About 60 practices have signed up to participate in the roughly 2.5 weeks that the link for signups has been available, said Kelli Barron, director of development and communications for COA. COA intends to present the data to members of Congress next week. “We wanted to monitor what’s going on with the new Medicare rules,” she explained. “Everyone says it’s not working. Having hard data is a lot more effective.”
Besides quantifying the impact of Part D, the survey seeks information about changes due to the reimbursement of medications infused in the office as average sale price (ASP) plus 6% rather than average wholesale price (AWP). This long-discussed move took effect on January 1, 2006, Barron said.
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