Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

In response to a Wall Street Journal op-ed and request for information about innovative ways to pay for and deliver health care in the U.S., the Personalized Medicine Coalition has encouraged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to spearhead models that empower physicians to move away from the current standard of care when patient outcomes can be improved by tailoring care to a patient’s genetics and other factors:

• PMC Comment Letter on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Innovation Center New Direction

In keeping with PMC’s mission to underline the significance of personalized medicine to patients and the health system, the Coalition’s comment letter contends that personalized medicine products and services can increase the overall value of dollars spent by improving health outcomes.

CMS’ previous efforts to advance new payment models, the letter notes, were met with resistance largely because they focused on reducing overall health care costs without adequately considering whether those reductions would result in a disproportionate decrease in the outcomes that matter to patients.

PMC indicates in the letter that the guiding principles put forth in CMS’ request for information provide “reasonable assurance” that the agency plans to proceed at “a more measured pace” going forward.

“We believe that personalized medicine has the potential to help CMS deliver on its goal of [affordable, accessible health care] if [the agency] focuses on maximizing individual patient outcomes, if new models are fully evaluated before large-scale implementation, if payment is not rooted in current standard of care, and if physicians have the flexibility to tailor care based on a patient’s genetics and other factors,” the letter reads.

Please contact Cynthia A. Bens, Vice President, Public Policy, at cbens@personalizedmedicinecoalition.org with questions about PMC’s comment letter.

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Personalized Medicine Coalition
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www.PersonalizedMedicineCoalition.org