The Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) today applauded Senator Reid’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for including strong patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER) language. The CER language is based on the approach taken by Senators Baucus and Conrad in their CER bill (S. 1213), which is supported by over 100 organizations across the country, representing patients, providers, people with disabilities, and minority health organizations.
“Although we’re still reviewing the language, everything we’ve seen so far indicates that the CER provisions in the Senate bill are focused on patient and provider needs and include many of the safeguards the people in our community have been looking for," PIPC chairman and epilepsy patient Tony Coelho said. “The legislative process is never an easy one, but we’re glad that Senator Reid has kept the spirit of Senator Baucus’s comparative effectiveness research language intact. Treatment decisions must always remain between a patient and his or her health care provider, and PIPC believes that everyone can benefit from a strong patient-centered approach to CER. PIPC looks forward to continuing to work with lawmakers to ensure CER is about supporting patients and providers in making good health care choices, and not about dictating those choices to them through centralized coverage policies or mandatory ‘best practices.’”