Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) led a bipartisan group of 14 other senators in sending a letter to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requesting that the agency work to increase patient access to Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) scans.
The senators said they believe that access to PET and SPECT scans – which help physicians identify certain diseases more effectively, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, advanced cardiovascular disease, and prostate cancer – has the ability to be improved if the packaging of payment for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals used in the scans was addressed.
PET and SPECT scans use diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals, which are radioactive drugs that produce images of organs and tissues, to diagnose disease.
While CMS currently packages payment for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals into the payment for the imaging procedure they are used in, many entities within the field have called on the agency to issue separate payments for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals.
Blackburn and her colleagues call for separate payments to be issued for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals.
“We have heard from patients and providers about similar access issues for patients seeking nuclear medicine scans for Parkinson’s Disease, prostate and other cancers, as well as certain cardiac conditions. We have heard about patients having to drive extremely long distances past several health systems to a provider who offers these scans. Physicians have also stated that they have needed to refer their patients outside their health system to receive the most accurate diagnostic scans due to the inadequacy of the packaged reimbursement methodology,” the senators wrote in the letter to CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure.
“We urge CMS to address packaging of payment for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals. This action is critical to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries have access to appropriate care in their communities,” the senators added.
The letter, sent on June 20, was led by Blackburn and co-signed by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Jon Tester (D-MT), James Lankford (R-OK), Martin Heinrich (D-NN), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Steve Daines (R-MT), Joe Manchin (I-WV), and Gary Peters (D-MI).
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “PET Scan” by Då.nu. CC BY 4.0.
