​In a letter to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) Chairman Tony Coelho provided feedback on the LAO’s recent report entitled “The 2019-20 Budget: Analysis of the Carve Out of Medi-Cal Pharmacy Services From Managed Care.”  While PIPC shares concerns emphasized in the report about affordability of health care for patients and people with disabilities, Chairman Coelho recognized the implications of using of discriminatory cost-effectiveness analysis for preference of drugs and as reference for spending caps. He emphasized that these analyses ultimately employ discrimination and restricted access as a means to lower costs. “In the end, policies that prevent patients and people with disabilities from getting the right care at the right time based on their unique characteristics and priorities adversely impact health and increase costly adverse events such as hospitalizations,” wrote Chairman Coelho. “Therefore, we reject any approach that fails to consider the implications for discrimination and adverse health outcomes in its analysis of the formal use of cost-effectiveness analysis for preference of drugs in Medi-Cal and use of a drug spending cap, similar to the State of New York.”

In a letter to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) Chairman Tony Coelho provided feedback on ICER's draft evidence report for Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD). The letter offers criticism of ICER's model for inaccurately accounting for the cost burden of TRD, as well as ICER's misleading estimates on mortality rates associated with the disease. Chairman Coelho encouraged ICER to abandon discriminatory value assessment metrics such as the Quality-Adjusted-Life-Year (QALY), and instead focus on outcomes that truly matter to patients. "As the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) highlighted in its November comment letter to ICER, individuals with treatment resistant depression (TRD) are in desperate need of treatments that offer fast, effective relief," wrote Chairman Coelho. "The ICER model fails to capture the value of the treatment’s immediate impact. For patients, the ability to quickly get back to work and their families is invaluable.​"

In a letter to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) Chairman Tony Coelho offered feedback on ICER's ​draft evidence report
on a treatment for Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (SPMS). The letter aligns with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's position that ICER should discontinue the current review for siponimod due to the FDA approval for siponimod and the subsequent approval for cladribine, meaning that ICER’s scope of its draft evidence report is no longer sufficient. "ICER has once again missed the mark by showing callous disregard for patients," wrote Chairman Coelho. "Instead of working to engage with MS patients and taking their preferences and needs into consideration in evaluating a treatment designed for MS patients, ICER instead has chosen to rely on dated studies and mechanisms that are widely considered flawed."

The Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) submitted a comment letter to the Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI) on their first oncology-specific Open-Source Value Platform (OSVP) model focused on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho complimented the detail and comprehensiveness of the IVI's model, noting the tremendous value that open-source models offer. However, Chairman Coelho strongly encouraged IVI not to utilize the flawed quality-adjusted-life-year metric in its multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) component. "As QALYs are assigned by both quality as well as quantity of life, an incremental QALY assessment would prioritize providing treatment to a non-disabled population with a longer theoretical life expectancy, and otherwise perfect health, over a population with a disability or chronic condition," wrote Chairman Coelho. "It is our hope that IVI chooses to be innovative in moving beyond the QALY."