RheumPAC has been working to ensure that individual legislators understand what rheumatology practices and patients face when it comes to delivering high quality care to those with rheumatic diseases and advocating for policies to support affordability of care, workforce expansion, prior authorization reform and fair reimbursement levels.
In recent months, the ISC has engaged with payers to reduce administrative burden on practices and continues to advocate to the CMS for the use of complex administration codes for biologics.
Ongoing ACR advocacy efforts are working to keep biologic drugs accessible to rheumatology patients, defending the ability of rheumatology practices to use the complex chemotherapy codes for administration of biologic therapies.
The ACR and a new Access to Reproductive Health Care Task Force are working to ensure patients with rheumatic disease—particularly women—have access to the medications and treatments they need, including methotrexate, and that rheumatology providers are able to maintain trusting relationships with and advise their patients on all matters relevant to the management of their rheumatic diseases.
Cigna will not move forward with changes to their reimbursement policy for evaluation and management (E/M) codes submitted with modifier 25 as originally scheduled.
Practices that received Provider Relief Funds between April 10–June 30, 2020, and did not file a report may request to submit a late report and avoid having funds recouped.
In 1916, a handful of conservation advocates successfully lobbied Congress to create the National Park Service, which now protects more than 85 million acres of U.S. land. Dedicated rheumatology advocacy has lasting effects, too, as evidenced by several policy wins in 2021 and efforts underway for 2022.
The reassurance comes after ACR leadership sent a letter detailing how its prior authorization forms increased paperwork burden for many biologic drugs and hurt patients’ timely access to treatment.
Updated Dec. 16, 2021: In response to advocacy from the ACR and other provider and patient groups, Congress passed legislation to avoid the nearly 10% “Medicare cliff” scheduled to take effect Jan 1. The ACR thanks all ACR/ARP members and patients who took the time to engage in this critical effort with us to protect…
The ACR has long supported efforts to reduce drug prices through many of the provisions included in the House-passed version of the Build Back Better Act. However, the current wording of one provision puts patient access to Medicare Part B treatments at risk.