Medicare Preparing Rule to Ensure Swift Access to Covid Vaccine

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has a plan to ensure full payment for and speedy access to new Covid-19 vaccines and treatments for Medicare beneficiaries, agency Administrator Seema Verma said Tuesday at a virtual conference.

Although Congress has made clear it wants Medicare to cover the cost of a Covid-19 vaccine without cost-sharing, Verma said it can take one to three years to work out payment issues for vaccines and other treatments due to agency’s “very deliberative processes,” which, “unfortunately, can delay putting access to important treatments, innovative technology in the hands of our beneficiaries.”

So the agency ...