Mr. Ira Goldman, VP of Government Affairs, Lantheus
Presentation Slides: FIND_Act_PHEN_Sept2024
Mr. Ira Goldman, Vice President of Global Public Policy and Government Relations at Lantheus, presented on the Facilitating Innovative Nuclear Diagnostics (FIND) Act at PHEN’s 20th Annual African American Prostate Cancer Disparity Summit. The FIND Act, legislation first proposed in 2021, applies to a type of diagnostic imaging, known as the PSMA PET imaging scan, that has become vital for prostate cancer patients in recent years.
“These diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals have had some very specific reimbursement challenges within the Medicare hospital outpatient space,” stated Mr. Goldman. “Under the hospital outpatient prospective payment system, Medicare has considered these diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals as supplies – and ancillary to the procedure when, in fact, these imaging agents are FDA-approved drugs, and you can’t conduct the PET scan without having these drugs.”
Essentially, these drugs are significantly underpaid at hospitals after a three-year period via Medicare. That leads to a patient access problem where many hospitals cannot afford to provide these imaging agents. After being urged by patient groups and stakeholders, Medicare proposed to pay separately for diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals. The FIND Act also requires sufficient Medicare reimbursement for these new-generation diagnostics, explained Mr. Goldman.
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