There are two IMMEDIATE items that we ask you to contact your Representatives’ and Senators’ offices about TODAY!

The first is to invite your Representatives’ health legislative staff to a Capitol Hill briefing on the Components of Care Study and the recently announced Medicare reimbursement cuts. Drs. David Eagle and Patrick Cobb will be presenting both topics. It is critical that House health staff understand what is required in delivering cancer care and why reimbursement is insufficient, especially in light of the recently announced phased-in cuts.

We were successful in averting the severe cuts for 2010 because of the outreach from community oncology to Congress.  Now, it is critical to continue that outreach to avert any phased-in cuts and to make a case for help for cancer care in the final health care reform bill.  Additionally, the 21.5% cut in overall Medicare payments still looms, because it was removed from the health care reform bill that the House just passed — the same House bill supported by the American Medical Association and the American Cancer Association.  

We urge you to invite health staff to this briefing and, in the process, communicate the impact that the Medicare cuts will have on your practice.

The second is to ask your Senators to join Senators Specter, Casey, Brown, and Stabenow in sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid to include the cancer care prompt pay solution in the Senate health care reform bill.  As you know, the prompt pay discount artificially reduces Medicare and any private payer reimbursement based on Average Sales Price (ASP) by approximately 2%.  The solution proposed by Senators Specter, Casey, Brown, and Stabenow is a modified version of existing legislation in the Senate (S. 1221) and the House (H.R. 1392).

Understand that advocating for this prompt pay solution has also been critical in calling attention to the growing crisis in cancer care and in averting further cuts to ASP + 6% drug reimbursement, especially given the payment cuts to outpatient hospitals for drug reimbursement.

On the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) website at www.communityoncology.org in the Immediate Action Needed section (top post) we include simple communication points and contact information for health legislative staff.

Please make these contacts today and spread the word.  Community oncology needs to continue fighting during this health care reform debate!