On July 16th, A group of patient advocacy organizations sent a letter to Senate Committee on Finance members Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), opposing any changes to CMS policy that would result in the use of shared billing codes to cover multiple different products. The letter was organized by ASBM member Alliance for Patient Access (AfPA) and the Biologic Prescribers’ Collective (BPC), a project of AfPA.

ASBM and AfPA were among the many patient advocacy organizations that opposed the use of shared billing codes by CMS. Read ASBM’s September 2017 comment letter to CMS opposing the shared billing code policy here. 

In November 2017, CMS announced the reversal of the policy, following a public comment period which found strong opposition among patient advocacy organizations, physician societies, and manufacturers of both originator biologics and biosimilars. It has been estimated that the adoption of unique billing codes will save $65 billion to Medicare over ten years.

In an Inside Health Policy article published June 29th, Sen. Wyden had proposed returning to the policy of shared codes.

Read the full letter here.