On May 22, 2020, the Alliance for Aging Research and 26 other patient advocacy organizations wrote to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center) to show support for a “smoothing demonstration” included in the Innovation Center’s Part D Modernization Request for Applications (RFA). In the RFA, CMS included a section “Smoothing of Enrollee Cost-Sharing through All Part D Benefit Phases” which would allow Part D sponsors to offer plans to enrollees that would evenly spread beneficiary cost-sharing obligations throughout a plan year. The groups on the letter (listed below) wrote to CMS to express appreciation to CMS for the inclusion of the demonstration and urged CMS to proactively reach out to Part D sponsors about the importance of the smoothing demonstration.
- Alliance for Aging Research
- Alliance for Patient Access
- American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
- American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP)
- American Society of Hematology
- Arthritis Foundation
- Cancer Support Community
- CancerCare
- Epilepsy Foundation
- Genetic Alliance
- Global Healthy Living Foundation
- Go2Foundation for Lung Cancer
- HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute
- International Pemphigus Pemphigoid Foundation
- Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
- LUNGevity Foundation
- Lupus and Allied Diseases Association, Inc.
- Lupus Foundation of America
- M-CM Network
- National Alliance on Mental Illness
- National Black Nurses Association
- National Council on Aging
- National Organization for Rare Disorders
- Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation
- PXE International
- The Mended Hearts, Inc
- The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
To read the letter, click the link below.