Blood Community Urges CMS to Improve Access to Palliative Blood Transfusion

AABB, America’s Blood Centers (ABC) and the American Red Cross (ARC) on Tuesday urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to take action to improve Medicare beneficiaries’ access to palliative blood transfusion during end-of-life care.

In joint comments to CMS, AABB, ABC and ARC thanked the agency for its focus on removing barriers to palliative blood transfusion and applauded its explicit recognition that the hospice benefit covers this care. However, the payment policy needs to be revised to further expand access to blood transfusion in hospice care.

To do so, AABB, ABC and ARC asked CMS to provide incremental, separate payments that leverage the established blood product Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) code sets and associated rates for palliative blood transfusions furnished under the Medicare hospice benefit.

“Together with continued education about the availability of blood transfusions under the hospice benefit, carving out payments for blood transfusions from the per-diem payment will remove a substantial barrier to care and improve end-of-life care for patients and their families,” the organizations wrote.

Advancing coverage and payment policies that support patients’ access to transfusion medicine throughout the continuum of care is a key component of AABB’s Advocacy Agenda.  Additional information about AABB’s efforts to expand coverage and reimbursement policies is available online.