Hi, my name is Brian Nyquist. I am President & CEO of the National Infusion Center Association, the nonprofit trade association formed to support and represent all non-hospital, non-oncology infusion businesses across the country. 

 

A serious issue has arisen with the potential to negatively impact community infusion practices and centers, and jeopardize patient access and safety.

Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC) have begun using Local Coverage Analyses (LCA)---circumventing Local Coverage Determinations (LCD) and the statutory requirement to provide the opportunity for public comment---to drive policy changes that threaten patients' access to the care they need to optimize health outcomes, maximize quality of life, and minimize the physical, emotional, and economic burdens of disease without the opportunity for these patients or the infusion centers that treat them to comment on the implications of such changes. 

Due to what we believe to be the arbitrary and misguided actions of a few MACs across the country, outpatient infusion centers will experience a significant reduction in reimbursement that will erode your infrastructure and care team stability to deliver high-touch care to our Medicare population.

If this change is successfully implemented without aggressive opposition, these harms will extend across your commercial payors.

As such, NICA has formed a unified coalition of specialist community providers, Ambulatory Infusion Centers, and thought leaders from professional associations to fight for the future of healthcare through litigation, but the cost to win will be great. We need support from every infusion practice and center across the country!

This is a battle worth fighting, a war worth winning, and an advocacy plan for patients that requires your financial support. Outside experts estimate that the annualized impact could be a loss of $150,000 per year for every 100 infusion patients you treat per month.

We are asking for a minimum of $2,000 for every provider in your infusion operation to support our collective mission. Many infusion practices have donated $10,000 to $15,000, with large regional and national infusion groups donating $50,000 to $100,000 to the cause. To file litigation in three states, we need to raise $1.4 million.

If you support a patient-centered health care system, believe that people impacted by government-driven policy changes should have a voice in shaping health care, and you would like to fight to preserve access to biologic medicines, contribute $2,000 to this fundraiser and join the fight!

Please donate today and share a link to this fundraiser with your colleagues.