AHA recommends CMS actions to promote access to CAR T therapy

The AHA today urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to consider alternative payment solutions to promote beneficiary access to chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy and other new technologies that “offer extraordinary potential to save lives, but are also associated with extraordinary costs.” In a letter to CMS, AHA recommended immediate and longer-term actions to “promote beneficiary access to these therapies, set appropriate precedents for how they are handled in rating setting and preserve opportunities for additional payment options in the future.” On Friday, CMS proposed that Medicare cover CAR T therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration when they are prescribed by the treating oncologist and performed in a hospital meeting certain criteria.