Medicare Agency Aims to Change Drug Programs to Lower Prices

The government is stepping up its efforts to lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries under recently proposed changes to its outpatient payment regulations.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wants to create a new model to pay for drugs under Part B. Part of the plan, unveiled in a proposed rule (RIN:0938-AT30), is to get public comment on how to resurrect and restructure its Competitive Acquisition Program (CAP), where drug supply vendors would bid for Medicare Part B drugs and biologicals on behalf of physicians. The program ran from 2006 until 2008 and was unsuccessful because of ...