2008-05-01

Legislation Introduced to Prevent Medicare Physician Payment Cuts

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) introduced S.2785, the Save Medicare Access Act of 2008. The bill would avert the 10.6 percent cut scheduled to take effect July 1 and the additional cut of 5 percent or more scheduled in January. Payments would continue at their current rate through the remainder of 2008 and then would rise by 1.8 percent in 2009. ASH has endorsed the legislation and is working to have the legislation passed before July 1.

NHLBI Announces Realignment of Sickle Cell Disease Research Program

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) announced a comprehensive and innovative restructuring of its research program in sickle cell disease (SCD). NHLBI is working on expanding funding and reconfiguring current programs for basic and translational research, increasing opportunities for drug development via the NCI's Rapid Access to Interventional Development (RAID), and developing evidence-based guidelines for all SCD patients. NHLBI is also developing a new Clinical Trials Research Network (CTRN), similar to NCI's Children's Oncology Group (COG), designed to open clinical trials to more patients and expand support of genomic research in SCD. NHLBI intends to take advantage of existing scientific opportunities and make SCD resources more widely available.

ASH submitted recommendations in response to NHLBI's request for public information regarding the top scientific and clinical priorities in SCD. The Society is pleased to see many of its recommendations incorporated into the realignment, including recommendations to develop improved and new treatments, expand funding for all types of research, and create a new model for clinical trials.

New Medicare Demonstration Program Aims to Show Advantages of Electronic Health

Medicare is looking for 12 communities across the country that can bring together a broad cross-section of community leadership, leverage resources, and recruit small and medium-sized primary care physician practices willing to provide the evidence that electronic health records (EHR) can improve the quality of patient care.

As many as 1,200 physician practices nationwide could be eligible for incentive payments of up to $58,000 per physician —up to $290,000 per practice —over the five-year life of the demonstration. E-mail EHR_Demo_communityselections@cms.hhs.gov for more information.

ASH Advocates for NIH Funding Increase in FY 2009

ASH and other organizations within the biomedical research community have joined forces to advocate for an increase of 6.6 percent for NIH in FY 2009.

In March, the House and Senate passed differing versions of the FY 2009 Budget Resolution, which sets forth a budgetary blueprint that each Appropriations subcommittee will use as a guideline in drafting their respective funding bills this year. The Senate-passed Budget Resolution includes funding to provide for a potential total increase for NIH of $3 billion (or approximately 10.3 percent) over President Bush's proposed funding level.

As this issue of The Hematologist went to press, the outlook for the entire appropriations process remained unclear. The President has said that he will veto any appropriations bill that exceeds his request for discretionary spending. Meanwhile, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) has publicly stated that unless the President is willing to negotiate on funding levels for programs such as NIH, Congress will simply wait to enact a final FY 2009 budget after a new president takes office in January 2009, more than a quarter of the way through the fiscal year.

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