 Fierce Healthcare published an article covering a recent report from The Pew Charitable Trusts on Medicare’s six protected classes policy. The article, entitled “Report: Axing protected drug classes in Medicare Part D may not substantially lower spending,” notes that eliminating protected classes of medications may have a “limited financial payoff.” The article further details the use of medication management within the protected classes — correcting a common misnomer — by noting that “Part D plans do have some ability to restrict drugs in these classes… which could also impact how effectively eliminating the protected classes would cut down drug spending.”
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 An article in Inside Health Policy reports that eliminating the protected drug classes would not result in additional savings to the Medicare program. The article — citing a recent report by The Pew Charitable Trust on the protected classes policy — notes that while health plans would like to see more leverage over drug prices in the protected classes policy, a rollback of the policy would not save the program that much money due to factors such as strong generic drug competition and the ability of Part D plans to restrict drugs in the classes. The article also points out the widespread, bipartisan support that the six protected classes policy currently enjoys. “When CMS proposed eliminating three classes -- antidepressants, immunosuppressants and antipsychotics -- a 200-member coalition opposed the idea, as did Republicans and Democrats in both chambers. CMS subsequently backed off the proposal, then-CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told Congress the agency didn’t plan to revisit it.”
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September 2023
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