New York Times highlights shortfalls in transplant patient immunosuppressive drug coverage

Dec 16 2009

Today's New York Times article by Kevin Sack, "Plan for Kidney Drugs Spurs Division," illustrates an internal renal community reimbursement debate that may result in kidney patients continuing to be deprived of their life-saving immunosuppressive medications beyond the current 36-month Medicare program limit.

As Congress is poised to approve this urgent transplant patient coverage to preserve the lives of transplant kidney recipients, behind-the-scenes debate continues within the renal community regarding how dialysis should be reimbursed. The American Society of Transplantation (AST) believes strongly that dialysis reimbursement, while important, should not hold hostage a bill that would provide thousands of kidney transplant patients their desperately needed and life-saving immunosuppressant medications.

AST President, Dr. Joren Madsen, stated this morning, "I applaud the New York Times for drawing attention to an urgent patient care issue which should not fall victim to politics as usual." Transplant patient immunosuppressive drug coverage has been AST's #1 Public Policy Issue for more than a decade. As this morning's New York Times article states, "It is pound foolish" to pay for a patient's organ transplant and then only give them a 36-month supply of the drugs they need to maintain their life-saving donor organ for the remainder of their life.