NEW Drs. Jeffrey and Isabel Chell Clinical Trials Travel Grant 

As you may recall, NMDP/Be The Match received a generous contribution from the Carter Family last year to continue their son Jason’s legacy by helping to get more people to participate in clinical trials which established the Jason Carter Clinical Trials Program. In partnership with the Jason Carter Clinical Trials Program  (JCCTP), the Drs. Jeffrey and Isabel Chell Clinical Trials Grant provides financial assistance to qualified patients (blood disorders/cancers), who need help paying for travel, ground transportation and lodging. If you have any questions, please contact our Clinical Trial Patient Education Specialist by calling 1-888-814-8610 or email clinicaltrials@jcctp.org.

Protect Medicare Patient Access to Life-Saving Transplants

Medicare patients need your help! Ask your Members of Congress to support and cosponsor HR 4215, the Protect Access to Cellular Transplant (PACT) Act, which would require the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to reimburse for donor search & cell acquisition on a reasonable cost basis and separate from the MS-DRG payment that covers the inpatient stay. Transplant centers lose thousands of dollars on every Medicare patient they treat, creating a financially unsustainable environment and threatening patient access to transplant.  Ask your Members of Congress to support HR 4215.

HCT Guidelines for Referral Timing and Post-Transplant Care

Every year, the NMDP/Be The Match partners with the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation™ (ASBMT) to produce the most up-to-date transplant referral guidelines based on current clinical practice, medical literature, evidence-based reviews, and National Comprehensive Cancer Network^® (NCCN) guidelines.  Access the updated guidelines to better understand the most appropriate timing for transplant referral resulting in optimal patient outcomes and survival.

American Society of Hematology 2017 Annual Meeting Recap

If you couldn't attend ASH 2017 last month, here are few noteworthy session highlights:

Cost-effectiveness Analysis of CTL019 for the Treatment of Pediatric and Young Adult Patients with Relapsed or Refractory B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in the United States

A partitioned survival model was used to compare incremental cost-effectiveness of Kymriah (CTL019) vs. other standard-of-care treatments. Over a 20-year time horizon, treatment with Kymriah lead to an increase of 2.31 discounted QALYs relative to HCT. Kymriah value prices set at incremental cost-effectiveness ratio $150,000/QALY ranged from $604,289 to $779,487 across comparators. Review the abstract here.

Prevalence and Risk-Factors for Financial Burden in Patients with Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease: A Cross-Sectional Survey from the Chronic GVHD Consortium

A cross-sectional questionnaire regarding financial burden topics was completed by 182 patients enrolled on a multi-center observational study measuring outcomes for cGVHD treatment. The authors conclude that significant proportion of cGVHD patients are at risk for worse outcomes due to financial hardship. Review the abstract here.

Survival Outcome and Insurance Status Among Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (HL) Patients: Data from SEER 2007-2014

Insurance is one of the most important determinants of health disparity. A study on outcomes and insurance status among Hodgkin Lymphoma patients shows that Medicaid patients had the worst outcomes in almost all age groups. This study was performed  using data from years 2007-2014, prior to Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Review the abstract here.

Quality of Life of Informal Caregivers of Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Recipients

Although transplant recipients are required to designate informal caregivers, there are only a few small studies that seek to understand levels of distress and burden on the caregiver. In the largest analysis of caregiver QoL to date, the authors report that low caregiver QoL is associated with recipient distress, relapse, use of immunosuppressive therapy, and lower recipient QoL. Review the abstract here.

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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.