PIPC commends CER language inclusion in health care reform bill

The Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) today applauded Senator Reid’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for including strong patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER) language. The CER language is based on the approach taken by Senators Baucus and Conrad in their CER bill (S. 1213), which is supported by over 100 organizations across the country, representing patients, providers, people with disabilities, and minority health organizations.

“Although we’re still reviewing the language, everything we’ve seen so far indicates that the CER provisions in the Senate bill are focused on patient and provider needs and include many of the safeguards the people in our community have been looking for," PIPC chairman and epilepsy patient Tony Coelho said. “The legislative process is never an easy one, but we’re glad that Senator Reid has kept the spirit of Senator Baucus’s comparative effectiveness research language intact. Treatment decisions must always remain between a patient and his or her health care provider, and PIPC believes that everyone can benefit from a strong patient-centered approach to CER. PIPC looks forward to continuing to work with lawmakers to ensure CER is about supporting patients and providers in making good health care choices, and not about dictating those choices to them through centralized coverage policies or mandatory ‘best practices.’”

Mr. Coelho continued, “The most important stakeholder in health care is the patient. This bill provides a sound framework for independent, sustained, and objective research that is focused on the needs of patients. By creating an independent research institute – outside of the government – and including significant patient safeguards, the CER provisions will ensure that relevant, credible data is available to patients and their healthcare providers, and help ensure that information is used to inform treatment options, not limit them.”

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes a number of provisions to ensure that CER is used to benefit the needs of patients. It would create an independent institute governed by patients, providers, government officials and other stakeholders and it further strengthens safeguards to protect patient access to the treatment options they need. The compromise bill also incorporates language, authored by Senator Mikulski, that ensures this information is disseminated in a manner that is understood by patients. It expands patient safeguards, including a focus on clinical effectiveness research, not cost-effectiveness; and includes safeguards to ensure that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will not misuse CER results in ways that overlook differences in patient needs or discriminate against the elderly or people with disabilities.