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Visudyne reimbursement to increase
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Beginning next month, Medicare will increase by $100 its reimbursement for a drug for photodynamic therapy of age-related macular degeneration, according to the drug’s comarketers.
QLT and Novartis Ophthalmics announced that, effective April 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will raise the Medicare allowable reimbursement rate for Visudyne (verteporfin for injection, Novartis) to $1,404 from $1,304.
Earlier this year, QLT and Novartis asked CMS to make an exception to the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, in order to bring the Medicare payment more in line with the price physicians were paying for their drug, the companies said in a press release. The new rate was determined using the average selling price of Visudyne in the fourth quarter last year plus 6%, the companies said.
QLT noted that “it is expected the new rate of reimbursement will only be in place for 2004 and that 2005 reimbursement for Visudyne will be linked to Average Selling Price in 2004 plus 6%.”