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Medicare Could Change Anemia Drug Payments

Posted on June 26, 2007

Medicare could scrap a payment system that some critics say encourages dialysis centers to give kidney patients more anemia drugs than they need. On Capitol Hill today, acting Medicare chief Leslie Norwalk told a House committee that the agency could begin paying a fixed rate for a bundle of services that includes dialysis and the anemia drugs, Amgen s Epogen and Aranesp. Under the current system, the centers are paid more, up to a point, if they use more of the drug. CMS is generally supportive of such reform, depending of course on the specifics of the proposal, she said. (For her c...

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