Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.
Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.
Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.
“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”
After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients.
“A lot of us are in disbelief that this is happening,” he said. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business.”
Some who have been pushing the federal government to spend less on health care say this is not the right approach.
“I don’t think there was an intention to disrupt care or move it into a more expensive setting,” said Cathy Schoen, senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, which recently released a plan for cutting $2 trillion in health spending. “If that’s the case, we’re being penny-wise and a pound-foolish with these cuts.”
Legislators meant to partially shield Medicare from the automatic budget cuts triggered by the sequester, limiting the program to a 2 percent reduction — a fraction of the cuts seen by other federal programs.
But oncologists say the cut is unexpectedly damaging for cancer patients because of the way those treatments are covered.
Medications for seniors are usually covered under the optional Medicare Part D, which includes private insurance. But because cancer drugs must be administered by a physician, they are among a handful of pharmaceuticals paid for by Part B, which covers doctor visits and is subject to the sequester cut.
The federal government typically pays community oncologists for the average sales price of a chemotherapy drug, plus 6 percent to cover the cost of storing and administering the medication.
Since oncologists cannot change the drug prices, they argue that the entire 2 percent cut will have to come out of that 6 percent overhead. That would make it more akin to a double-digit pay cut.
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8 Responses
Remeber who designed the sequestor was the rasha in chief obama while he, biden and obama’s family are flying all over for golf, and sking. This pres is a rasha like nobody has ever seen
I heard a similar report on a right-wing radio show yesterday, but the talker said that cancer patients could get appropriate care at general hospitals. So it seems that the problem, whatever it is, is that cancer hospitals have bad business models, because they cannot get reimbursements for their patients’ care, but general hospitals can get reimbursement for the same care. Something does not add up here.
So begin the death panels
It must b Rw. Propaganda because obama said hac costs would go down and that republicans just don’t care about poor people
You mean blame President Obummer. As #1 said, he has money to fly here,there and everywhere, but takes money out of cancer treatments!
Now people can wake up and look for true cures instead of death by Chemo. If you want the raw truth about cancer–it’s out there. It won’t even cost you your life savings.
How is a 4% markup not enough anyway?
Does it make sense for people to go to hospitals and get the same care for more money? How are we saving money when Medicare will pay even more to the hospitals than to the clinics?