Medicare Makes Interim Increase in Physician IVIG Payment

Your comments to CMS worked! FFF has just learned that Medicare made an interim increase in its allowable payment limit for IVIG today, effective for services retroactive to January 1 through March 31, 2005.

The new rate of $56.72 per gram (J1563) replaces the originally published rate of $40.02 per gram.

This policy change is the direct result of your letters and calls, and the intensive lobbying of the Immune Deficiency Foundation, PPTA, manufacturers and other stakeholders with an abiding interest in our goal: to continue to provide Medicare patients with physician office-based access to their IVIG therapy.

Efforts are ongoing to:

  • Establish a long-term Medicare rate-setting policy for IVIG to assure that physicians can continue to administer IVIG in their offices and ambulatory infusion clinics.
  • Pursue further improvements in Medicare payment for the associated IVIG infusion service.

Your direct input to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is extremely important. If you would like to commend CMS on this interim action, submit your comments electronically to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/regulations/ecomments. (Attachments should be in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect or Excel format).

Please copy FFF on your comments via email to kbgressitt@fffenterprises.com or call Kit-Bacon Gressitt at 1-800-843-7477.

We look forward to continuing our work with you to help protect the viability of providing IVIG therapy to your Medicare patients.

This message is an update to the Customer Alert on the main page.