Memorandum
Diabetes Care has published a compelling investigation of CMS’ competitive bidding program, concluding that reduced access to diabetes testing supplies resulted in an increase in mortality in competitive biding test sites. The results raise big-time red flags for what is already a heavily scrutinized program and differ significantly from CMS’ April 2012 report on adverse outcomes associated with competitive bidding, which suggested that there was “no disruption of access to supplies” (this was hugely surprising and disappointing from our major government payor) and no negative healthcare consequences associated with the program. Read the paper here and our previous coverage here.