Advocacy & Practice Updates — Advocacy & Practice
ASRS to Meet with CMS on Avastin Shortage; Will Urge an End to Step Therapy
In response to our letter with AAO to CMS on the Pine Pharmaceuticals Avastin recall, CMS has agreed to meet to discuss the impact on patients who are subject to step therapy through their Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. During this meeting, ASRS and AAO will reiterate our long-standing opposition to step therapy and explain how continuing to permit MA plans to require Avastin-first policies increases the treatment burden on patients and creates significant administrative hurdles for retina specialists when the vulnerable supply chain for the repackaged drug is disrupted.
ASRS continues to work with payers to recommend that they relax existing step-therapy policies during the shortage. As an update to last week’s Retina FYI, Unitedhealthcare commercial and Anthem/Elevance do not currently have Avastin-first policies.
Published October 18, 2023