HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is ordering CMS to review its 2022 Medicare Part B premiums following the announcement that Biogen would be slashing the price of its Alzheimer's disease drug in half, according to a Jan. 10 news release.
In November, CMS announced one of the largest Medicare Part B price hikes in the program's history: a 14 percent premium increase. The rule increased premiums to $170.10 and standard deductibles up to $30.
The department partially attributed the hike as bracing for the potential coverage of Aduhelm, which cost at the time an average of $56,000 per person per year. Since then, Biogen announced that effective Jan. 1, it would cut the price of Aduhelm in half.