The  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have decided to change the reimbursement rate for small Avastin doses, as used in the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration, reducing the reimbursement from about $25-30 per dose, to about $7.20, causing an increased cost to physicians that routinely use the compounded Avastin in ophthalmology.

On the other hand, the roughly $2000 cost per dose for Lucentis is fully reimbursed.

This change occurred this week and, as you can imagine, there has been much written and discussed about this change.

I have reproduced two articles, from the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, as well as a report on discussions about this occurring at the Retina Congress 2009, on my online Journal.

For the complete story please check out my writeup ^[1].