March 2014
This week, CMS announced that it was withdrawing its proposal to change Medicare Part D drug coverage requirements for immunosuppressive, antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs. Currently CMS requires Medicare Part D plans to cover all FDA-approved immunosuppressive drugs. CMS had proposed changing the requirement so that Medicare Part D plans would only need to cover one immunosupressive drug in each class or subclass. If implemented, this would have likely reduced the number of immunosuppressive drugs covered by Medicare Part D plans.
CMS received a high volume of comments from patient and providers expressing concerns with the proposed policy. The ATS submitted comments noting that successfully managing patients with organ transplants requires access to the full array of approved immunosuppressive drugs.
