WEBINAR: Policy Spotlight: What You Need to Know About the Medicare IPPS Rule

Join the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match and the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT) for a 30-minute joint webinar to review the impact of the FY 2018 Inpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule. Learn more about our efforts to increase reimbursement for donor search and cell acquisition and the autologous/allogeneic ICD-10 PCS coding issue that could have a serious impact on future reimbursement.

View our analysis and submit a comment. Comments are due by June 13.

MLN Matters: OIG Report Update

Last week, in response to our request, CMS issued a revision to the November MLN Matters guidance that mistakenly stated that most allogeneic transplants should occur in the outpatient setting. While the revised article did remove the incorrect sentence around exclusive clinical setting, the revised article could have gone further to state that allogeneic HCT should be performed in the most appropriate setting based on clinical judgement.

Some Medicare Advantage coverage policies have been affected by the MLN Matters guidance. Together with the ASBMT, we are writing letters to all of the Medicare Advantage plans that have changed their coverage language to require a review of allogeneic HCT in the inpatient setting. As always, we will keep you updated through this enewsletter, but please reach out to our team if you see patient care affected by revised coverage policies due to the MLN Matters article.

Joint NMDP/Be The Match and ASBMT SCD Congressional Briefing

On June 7, we and the American Society of Hematology (ASH) are co-sponsoring a Congressional briefing on the advancements in sickle cell disease (SCD) research. Speakers include Rep. Bill Foster, Ph.D., as well as SCD experts, Linda Burns, M.D., and Dan Bauer, M.D., Ph.D. A transplant recipient will also join the panel to share her experience of struggling with SCD and choosing transplant as a cure.

Financial Hardship is Not Limited to Unrelated HCT Patients

As we expand our services to related donor transplants, these patients have access to our patient assistance grants. Learn about the grants and how one young man benefited.

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If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact the Payer Policy Team at PayerPolicy@nmdp.org. All of our resources are available on our website: Network.BeTheMatchClinical.org/Reimbursement.