AHA Shares with MedPAC Recommendations for Addressing Drug Prices

The AHA appreciates the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s concerns about rising pharmaceutical costs and urged the Commission to continue to take action to achieve sustainable drug pricing. “Hospitals, and the clinicians who work in them, know firsthand the lifesaving potential of drug therapies … however, an unaffordable drug is not a lifesaving drug,” AHA said in a letter to MedPAC commissioners. AHA shared recommendations with MedPAC, including mandating an average sales price inflation cap for Medicare Part B and Part D drugs, and applying the cap to both high-cost and lower-cost drugs; identifying approaches to preventing excessively high launch prices as a response to an ASP inflation cap; maintaining the ASP plus 6 percent payment methodology for Part B drugs; testing a new Part D payment model that reduces or eliminates reinsurance payments while making appropriate adjustments to the direct subsidy rate; and improving annual public reports on Medicare Part B and Part D drug costs by making them more consumer and provider-friendly.