August 31, 2007

Cancer docs appealed to Medicare this week to relax controversial rules that limit their ability to prescribe anemia drugs to their patients:

An official with the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a powerful lobby of cancer doctors, said they will formally ask that the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid re-open a final rule issued last month tightening usage and dosing for the drugs.

"The proposal is unworkable and there is no evidence to support it at all," said Joseph Bailes, chair of the government relations panel at the American Society of Clinical Oncologists and a medical oncologist practicing in Houston.

This illustrates why, as Regina Herzlinger argues, Uncle Sam makes a bad doctor: federal agencies are driven to make knee jerk, cookie-cutter decisions that distort health outcomes.

Posted by Paul Howard at August 31, 2007 11:52 AM