Print ThisCANCER PATIENTS WILL BENEFIT FROM HEALTHCARE REFORM BILL
A historic healthcare reform bill signed into law by President Obama on March 22 included three OSUCCC-James-specific amendments that will help the institution better serve cancer patients and advance the global war on this disease in its many forms. The amendments are:
1) Access to 340b drug-purchasing prices for outpatient services – This provision will provide more than $6 million per year in fiscal relief to the OSUCCC-James and our patients.
2) Greater access to clinical trials – First announced at the OSUCCC-James in the spring of 2009, this provision was modeled after similar state legislation championed by the OSUCCC-James and passed by the Ohio General Assembly in 2008. The federal provision will ensure insurance coverage for individuals who participate in approved clinical trials.
3) Increase in outpatient payments – By 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will review and adjust our payment rates. The estimated benefit could be as high as $5 million per year.
“These provisions will enable us to better serve our patients and will bring us closer to ending cancer, not just for Ohioans but for the nation as a whole,” says Jennifer Carlson, assistant vice president for government affairs at the OSUCCC-James. “We owe a great deal of gratitude to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, for successfully offering two of these three amendments on our behalf.”
Carlson encourages everyone to join her in thanking Brown for championing the clinical trial access and 340b pricing language provisions by e-mailing him at http://brown.senate.gov/contact/ or sending a thank-you note to: The Honorable Sherrod Brown, 200 N. High St., Room 614, Columbus, Ohio, 43215.
