Scare tactics

Angry cancer doctors in the US are trying to stampede their patients into supporting their demands for more money from Medicare next year. The tactic involves frightening patients into believing that a stingy Medicare programme will make it impossible for oncologists to provide chemo-therapy in the comfortable surroundings of easy-to-reach offices, thus forcing them to transfer the patients to less convenient hospitals for treatment. The American Society of Clinical Oncology, wisely distanced itself from such scare tactics in a letter published in Thursday’s Times.

The current controversy comes after years in which Medicare greatly overpaid cancer doctors for the drugs they use while underpaying them for administering chemotherapy in the office, a complex task that requires highly trained staff and sophisticated equipment.

Congress changed this bizarre and indefensible system last year. As a result, Medicare payments for chem-otherapy drugs are now going down to more reasonable levels while payments for administering the drugs are going up.

Medicare officials say they have made a diligent effort to calculate the true costs of administering chemotherapy and have greatly increased the fees for outpatient oncology services. If oncologists think the payments will be too small, they need to submit additional data to prove it. — The New York Times