Advocates running out of time to reverse proposed cuts to vascular access
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The Dialysis Vascular Access Coalition and other national advocacy groups are racing against the clock to reverse proposed payment cuts – set to take effect Jan. 1 – on vascular access procedures done by interventionalists and surgeons.
The Washington, D.C.-based organization said it has joined coalitions in other specialties, such as cardiology, in support of H.R. 6048, the Medicare Stability for Patients and Providers Act.
The bill, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., would prohibit the implementation of certain clinical labor price updates included in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) final rule for calendar year 2022.
“Specialty providers are facing cut after cut after cut, year after year after year, while CMS is busy counting pennies,” Rush said in a press release. “Moving forward with these misguided cuts will be detrimental to the Biden administration’s stated goals of achieving health equity and will undoubtedly inflict disproportionate harm on minorities and other vulnerable patient groups.”
On its website, www.vascularaccess.org, the Dialysis Vascular Access Coalition (DVAC) wrote, “In the 2017 Physician Fee Schedule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) cut payments to a key vascular access code by 39%. A survey by the American Society of Diagnostic and Interventional Nephrology (ASDIN) in 2017 found that reimbursement levels were so inadequate that more than 20% of respondents stated their centers had closed due to the cuts.
“Unfortunately, the 2022 Physician Fee Schedule finalizes yet another round of drastic cuts to office-based vascular access. CMS cuts threaten the viability of vital outpatient, office based interventional services.
If enacted, the proposed cuts from CMS will further health care inequity across the country and leave patients with fewer options for life-saving care,” according to the coalition.
DVAC and 15 other health care organizations, including the Renal Physicians Association and the American Society of Diagnostic and Interventional Nephrology, signed a letter sent to Meena Seshamani, MD, PhD, deputy administrator and director of CMS, saying the proposed cuts of more than 20% to interventional procedures in 2022 were “troubling.
“Successive, cumulative cuts to specialists under the PFS are resulting in reimbursement ever more out of touch with actual resource needs as well as increased health care consolidation and health care costs, greater health inequities and a health care system unable to meet the challenges of an ongoing pandemic,” according to the letter.
In an interview with Healio Nephrology, Gregg Miller, MD, chair of health policy for DVAC, said vascular access centers of excellence treat more than half a million cases in the United States “in a safe, patient-preferred setting" and this deep cut of 20% will force many of these centers to close.
“There is significant momentum to fix this by the end of the year due to the widespread negative impacts this would have on patients and our entire health system," Miller said.
References:
- www.renalmd.org/news/579053/RPA-Sign-On-Coalition-Letter-on-Proposed-Fee-Schedule-Revision-to-Clinical-Labor-Pricing.htm
- https://rush.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/medicare-pay-cuts-looming-rush-bilirakis-introduce-bipartisa
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