New Bill Offers Medicare Reimbursement Fix for Intravenous Immun...(very close to me personally and a cookie...),Health

Eighteen patient advocacy groups and health care professional organizations, including the Immune Deficiency Foundation and the Alliance for Plasma Therapies, already have endorsed the bill via a joint letter of support, and IVIG patients and caretakers echoed that support while sharing their personal struggles in trying to access IVIG therapy during a briefing for stakeholders today. Special guests and patient advocates included Terri Cerda, who, together with her two young daughters, battles combined immunodeficiency disease and whose family will be featured on the May 10 episode of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," and Nebraska State Senator Abbie Cornett, who has common variable immunodeficiency disease. Other speakers included Jenny Gardner, a patient with common variable immunodeficiency; Lt. Col. Eugene B. Richardson, ret., who has progressive chronic polyneuropathy; and Craig Orfield, staff of Senator Enzi who has idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.

"Since 2005, patient access to IVIG has diminished, and Medicare beneficiaries throughout the country have experienced major health problems because of reimbursement reductions," said Marcia Boyle, founder and president of the Immune Deficiency Foundation. "We are grateful for the support of Representatives Israel, Brady and Schwartz and their sponsorship of this critical legislation that is designed to restore access to this vital therapy, and we are heartened by the overwhelming support from the patient advocacy community."

"Today is an unprecedented day to see so many different disease groups come together as a unified voice to strongly urge Congress to fix the unintended consequence of the Medicare Modernization Act which has caused Medicare beneficiaries to lose access to their lifesaving plasma therapy, IVIG, and has caused detrimenta
'/>"/>