Help Stop the Proposed Payment Cuts to Radiation Therapy!

Ask Your Representative to Sign the Griffith / Myrick / Capps / Rogers Letter to HHS

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Please call your Member of Congress today and ask them to sign this letter from House Representatives Griffith (R-AL) (radiation oncologist), Myrick (R-NC) (Co-Chair of the Cancer Caucus), Capps (D-CA) (Co-Chair of the Cancer Caucus), and Rogers (R-MI) (Co-Chair of the Cancer Care Working Group) calling for a reversal of the proposed payment cuts for radiation oncology in Medicare. The letter from Members of Congress to the Secretary of Health and Human Services is a Congressional response to CMS' recently proposed cuts to radiation oncology that will have a devastating effect on many community radiation oncology centers. US Oncology, along with ASTRO, ACRO, Varian, 21st Century, Vantage Oncology, OnCure and Alliance Oncology, are united in this effort to reverse the severe cuts to radiation oncology proposed in the recent CMS rule.

This misguided CMS policy stems primarily from concerns raised by Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) report to Congress regarding volume growth of diagnostic imaging services, but unlike the MedPAC report, CMS fails to make a critical distinction: radiation therapy is not diagnostic imaging. This letter from members of Congress to CMS stresses that radiation therapy for cancer is therapeutic, is not diagnostic imaging, and notes that MedPAC has confirmed that their report did not recommend cuts to radiation therapy for cancer patients. The letter concludes that radiation oncology should not endure these debilitating cuts, which climb to 44 percent for certain RT payments and result in a 19 percent cut in overall payments for radiation oncology services.

The community oncology centers that provide approximately one third of the radiation treatment for cancer patients in the nation today can not afford to absorb these cuts. Please join with others in the community oncology community and call your Representatives today and ask them to sign the Reps. Griffith, Myrick, Capps, and Rogers letter to HHS!

Click here to read the text of the letter from Reps. Griffith, Myrick, Capps, and Rogers to their fellow members of Congress asking for their signatures on this letter to CMS.

Click here to read the text of the letter we would like your Representative to sign.

Click here to read telephone talking points.

Click here to find contact information for your member of Congress.