Delegates from the Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) participated in the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates (HOD) on June 7 to 12 in Chicago. ASCO created and was the primary sponsor of six resolutions that the AMA HOD adopted as policy, an Association record. Here are the resolutions:
Coverage for Dental Services Medically Necessary for Cancer Care, which urged the AMA to advocate for all insurers to cover medically necessary oral examination and dental services prior to the administration of and resulting as a complication of radiation, chemotherapy, and/or surgery for all cancers of the head and neck region
Medicare Advantage (MA) Part B Drug Coverage, which called for the AMA to advocate with Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to require that MA plans cover physician-administered drugs and biologicals in such a way that the patient’s out-of-pocket cost is the same or less than the amount a patient with traditional Medicare plus a Medigap plan would pay
Prohibiting Mandatory White Bagging, which called on the AMA to urge state and federal policymakers to enact legislation to prohibit the mandatory use of white bagging
State Prescription Drug Affordability Boards, which asked the AMA to conduct a study to determine how upper payment limits established by state prescription drug affordability boards will impact reimbursement for physician-administered drugs and what impact state upper payment limits will have on patient access to care
Automatic Pharmacy-Generated Prescription Requests, which called on the AMA to advocate for pharmacy-generated requests for changes to a prescription to clarify whether these requests are generated by the patient or patient’s surrogates or automatically by the pharmacy
Alternative Funding Programs, which called on the AMA to educate employers, benefits administrators, and patients on alternative funding programs and their negative impacts on patient access to treatment and to advocate for legislative and regulatory policies that would address these negative impacts.
