12/12/2024

Join ASCO in Urging Congress to Pass Important Legislation by Year End

ASCO members are encouraged to advocate alongside the Association during this crucial time by writing to their members of Congress and asking them to help cancer patients and the providers who care for them.

• Pass the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act or the Telehealth Modernization Act. These bills would permanently extend telehealth flexibilities in Medicare. Without congressional action, the current flexibilities will expire at the end of the year. Meaning pre-COVID era restrictions requiring telehealth patients live in a designated rural area and go to an approved site outside their home will go back into place January 1.  Write to your lawmakers about telehealth.

• Pass the Medicare Patient Access and Practice Stabilization Act, which would stop the 2.8% cut to physician reimbursement in the 2025 Medicare PFS and provide an inflationary update equal to 50% of the Medicare Economic Index. The 2025 reimbursement cut would follow a 1.68% decrease in 2024 and exacerbate an overall physician reimbursement rate that has fallen 29% behind inflation since 2001. The Medicare physician payment system is unsustainable, and ASCO is calling on Congress to take this initial step to reform it.  Write to Congress about physician reimbursement.