Seniors Coalition Testimony: Medicare Coverage Advisory Cmte Hearing on OPT with Verteporfin for Occult Age-Related Macular Degeneration

9/9/2003

From: Chris Williams of The Seniors Coalition, 703-239-1960

BALTIMORE, Md., Sept. 9 -- Following is the testimony of David Herman, Executive Director of The Seniors Coalition, on Medicare coverage for Occult Age-Related Macular Degeneration:

September 9, 2003, Baltimore, Maryland

The Seniors Coalition (TSC) is a non-profit, 501c(4), non-partisan education and issue advocacy organization that represents the interests and concerns of America's senior citizens at both the state and federal levels. Our mission is to protect the quality of life and the economic well-being that older Americans have earned while supporting common sense solutions to the challenges of the future.

We are pleased to have this opportunity to address this advisory committee for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. We are here today to urge you to reconsider your decision to exclude Visudyne as a treatment covered by Medicare. Your decision directly impacts patients suffering from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a progressive eye disease that is the leading cause of blindness in individuals age 50 and older.

Medical research and experts in the field, including the American Academy of Ophthalmologists and the American Academy of Retina Specialists, agree that therapy OPT with verteporfin (Visudyne) is the most effective medication available for treating patients with the most serious form of AMD, known as wet AMD. According to the AMD Alliance, although wet AMD accounts for only about 15 percent of all cases, it is responsible for 90 percent of severe vision loss associated with the disease. Wet AMD evolves rapidly, and the majority of patients can lose their central vision within a few weeks to a few months of being diagnosed.

For seniors diagnosed with wet AMD, availability and timing of treatment is very important. Every day without proper treatment is an additional day of irreversible loss of sight. That is why it is important for you to act quickly to make OPT with verteporfin available to Medicare participants. We are not able to explain to our seniors that while those Americans with the financial means to pay for their own treatment will keep their sight, those who depend on Medicare will not get this innovative treatment, and, therefore, they will go blind.

On behalf of our four million members and supporters, as well as all seniors who depend on Medicare to provide 21st-Century coverage, The Seniors Coalition urges you to endorse Medicare coverage of OPT with verteporfin to treat AMD with occult lesions.

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