Almost 30 years ago, the federal government helped make it easier for patients with leukemia and lymphoma to receive lifesaving stem cell transplants. Now, we need the federal governments help again to ensure that Medicare patients with these cancers and other serious blood disorders can access the care they need.

In 1987, Congress approved funding for a national database of patients willing to donate bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells. That database is now known as the Be The Match Registry, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match. According to the NMDP/Be The Match, patients searching the registry have access to 27 million potential volunteer bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell donors worldwide, along with more than 680,000 units of cord blood donated by mothers after giving birth.

Having access to such a large registry has made it easier for patients to find a match if they dont have a fully matched sibling donor, which is the case for about 70 percent of patients who receive a stem cell transplant. The registry has helped 80,000 patients receive bone marrow transplants, peripheral blood stem cell transplants, or cord blood transplants from an unrelated donor.

While the federal governments foresight and financial support have helped make adult stem cell and cord blood transplants the only cure available for these diseases possible for thousands of patients, Medicare coverage policies have not kept pace with this breakthrough treatment.

Medicare is more restrictive than private insurance companies in deciding for what indications stem cell transplants and cord blood transplants will be covered. With private insurance companies, we have the opportunity to talk with a medical director about the indication and provide literature to support the decision for a transplant. This opportunity is not available for our Medicare patients.

In most cases, Medicare doesnt decide whether to cover a stem cell or cord blood transplant until after the procedure is completed. This leaves most Medicare patients an impossible choice: Turn down their only chance at a cure or potentially face paying the significant cost of a transplant themselves. Even when Medicare does decide to reimburse for these transplants, according to the NMDP/Be The Match, it covers less than half the cost of the transplant.

Addressing this issue is especially important because seniors make up a large portion of the patients with the cancers and blood diseases that can be cured by a stem cell or cord blood transplant. For example, 24 of the 65 patients who received stem cell or cord blood transplants at University of Virginia Health System in 2016 had Medicare coverage.

So I am asking the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to expand Medicare coverage for stem cell and cord blood transplants, along with paying for the search and procurement costs as they already do for solid organ transplants.

The federal government has helped save the lives of tens of thousands of patients through better access to stem cell and cord blood transplants. I hope now they will act to make sure all Medicare patients who need one of these transplants can receive it.

Tamila L. Kindwall-Keller, DO, MS is the associate clinical director of the Stem Cell Transplant Program at the University of Virginia Health System.

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Opinion/Commentary: Seniors put at risk by outdated Medicare policies - The Daily Progress