Flawed Medicare Plan Promotes Use of Dangerous Anemia Drug

Because Medicare pays hospitals extra for using Epogen, an anemia drug linked to increases in heart attacks, strokes and death, for-profit medical centers are prescribing the drug far too often to people receiving kidney dialysis, researchers say.

Epogen is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent blood transfusions in patients suffering from anemia, which can accompany kidney failure. [...]

The new study found that patients in chain-operated, for-profit dialysis centers consistently are given the highest doses of Epogen, regardless of their anemia status. The for-profit centers increased the drug dose even when patients already had recommended levels of red blood cells. The nonprofit centers did not. [...]

"If ever there was a time to fix this reimbursement system, it's now," said Dr. Ajay Singh of Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital, who was not involved in the new study, but led a previous study that linked aggressive use of the drug to health risks. Its overuse "may put patients at higher risk," he said.

Study urges caution on anemia drug use [Houston Chronicle]

Image: Lindsay Plumley