___
Recall that on October 3, 2019, President Trump signed an executive order focused on healthcare technology innovation and improvement the coverage process at CMS - entry point here.
On December 18, 2019, Kushal Kadakia, an Oxford Rhodes Scholar who spent the past summer at CMS, writes a Health Affairs blog focused on the potential value and impact of the Executive Order, and how it could be implemented.
- Blog here - worth reading.
The Executive Order "Improving Medicare" from last October opens with a statement that Medicare for All would destroy the US healthcare system, but goes on to have a series of bullet point ideas for improving CMS coverage and CMS-FDA coordination. The E.O. goes on with passages like these:
Within 1 year of the date of this order, the Secretary shall propose regulatory and sub-regulatory changes to the Medicare program to encourage innovation for patients by (a) streamlining the approval, coverage, and coding process so that innovative products are brought to market faster, and so that such products, including breakthrough medical devices and advances in telehealth services and similar technologies, are appropriately reimbursed and widely available, consistent with the principles of patient safety, market-based policies, and value for patients.... (etc)There are 12 total suggestions.
We hear a lot about the convergence of surprise billing momentum from the public press to the White House to the House to the Senate.
As reflected in Kadakia's blog, Medicare innovation shares momentum at both the White House and on the Hill. Legislators recently requested information from the public on how to improve biomedical innovation (aka 21st Century Cures 2.0) with equal focus on CMS as on FDA. (My Cures 2.0 comment here).
###
Kadakia was coauthor in 2017 on an article with Mark McClellan, "Improving Care And Lowering Costs: Evidence And Lessons From A Global Analysis Of Accountable Care Reforms," here.
###
On Twitter, Scott Gottlieb highlighted the December 2019 annual report of the FDA director at CBER, Peter Marks MD PhD; here.
