Draft Letter to the Editor re: Medicare Colonoscopy Cuts – TEMPLATE – Personalize but keep it brief
To the Editor:
In our country, Medicare coverage for preventive cancer screenings is directly responsible for remarkable progress against colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
Thanks to colonoscopy and the ability to remove polyps before colorectal cancer starts, we have a tremendous public health success story: screening is up, new cases of colon cancer are down and death rates are lower.
Plans to cut payments to the physicians who screen Medicare patients for deadly colorectal cancers have been announced which, if allowed to become final, threaten that success and could stymie
Medicare’s progress against this deadly cancer.
Medicare beneficiaries account for two-thirds of all new cases of colorectal cancer each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). More, not less, needs to be done to increase the use of screening tests by Medicare beneficiaries.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the 2016 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) proposed regulation which, if finalized, would drastically cut reimbursement rates for colonoscopy and other lower GI endoscopy procedures by between 10 and 20 percent.
It is counter-intuitive and short-sighted to cut Medicare reimbursement for colonoscopy just at the point when our state needs all the help it can get to see real progress in the number of new cases of colorectal cancer and the number of deaths.
I urge Rep. [CONGRESMAN HERE] and Senators [SENATORS HERE] to prevent Medicare regulators from finalizing these devastating planned cuts to colonoscopy.
Sincerely,
ACG MEMBER NAME
AFFILIATION
CITY/STATE
OFFICE PHONE