On Wednesday a private party empaneled by CMS will begin discussions on how effective radiation therapy is for the treatment of prostate cancer. The summit is important because the issue of covered treatments by Medicare in the age of new reform rules and possible cuts in reimbursement to providers who treat and screen for this slow-growing cancer is ripe for scrutiny.

While the meeting will not directly address the agency’s reimbursement rates, CMS is seeking advice that could later be used to determine its payment policies. It oversees 45 million elderly and disabled covered by the Medicare health insurance program, about 40 percent of them men.

The implication here is not that this meeting is to address the concern over covering radiotherapy in and of itself, it is that Pharma — and by extension, medical device companies scrambling to make a dent in this particular sector of innovation — have anything to lose with whatever CMS decides. Makes one wonder at whose insistence this type of prostate cancer treatment would be initially discussed — those who have the most (profitable) skin in the game within the scope of prostate cancer treatment. | LINK

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