JCO Study: MMA Did Not Influence Fee-For-Service Prescribing

The study by Kaiser Permanente found that prescription practices were not much influenced by the decrease in fee-for-service payments for outpatient chemotherapy, due the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003.

The Kaiser study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, examined 5,831 chemotherapy regimens for 3,613 patients from 2003 to 2006 with colorectal cancer (CRC) or lung cancers in the Cancer Care Outcomes Research Surveillance Consortium. There were significant differences based on the cancer type. After the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), fee-for-service patients were less likely to receive MMA-affected drugs. No pre- versus post-MMA difference in the use of MMA-affected drugs was detected among integrated health network patients.

Link to the study in JCO: http://bit.ly/1ByeEyo