WASHINGTON – House Medical Technology Caucus Co-chair Jim Ramstad (R-MN) today introduced legislation to expand access to lifesaving and life-enhancing medical technology for Medicare patients.

"Access to medical technology is literally a matter of life and death for seniors and people with disabilities," said Ramstad, who serves on the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee.

"The federal government must stop blocking access to life-saving and life-enhancing medical technology," said Ramstad. "It’s time to tear down the barriers that keep seniors and people with disabilities from getting the care they need."

"Under the current system, Medicare patients often face delays of up to five years before they have access to medical breakthroughs," Ramstad said. "This bipartisan legislation will streamline Medicare's coverage, coding and payment procedures that discourage innovation and deny America's seniors the medical technologies they desperately need."

The Ramstad legislation would require Medicare to do the following:

• Establish a Council for Technology and Innovation to improve the timeliness and coordination of coverage, coding and payment decisions;
• Implement a policy announced in 2000 to cover clinical trial costs for medical technologies;
• Set reasonable deadlines for implementing national coverage, coding and payment decisions and maintain a strong local coverage process as a vital route to patient access;
• Reduce delays of 2-4 years in the amount of time it takes Medicare to set adequate payment for new medical technologies in the inpatient setting;
• Implement reforms mandated by Congress more than two years ago to reduce long delays in the Medicare patient appeals process; and
• Adopt key recommendations from an Institute of Medicine report to improve the timeliness of Medicare payment decisions for innovative diagnostic tests.

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