Oppose LCDs and open up access to all MIGS options for glaucoma patients

Please keep early surgical intervention and all MIGS as an option for patients…

Payers dictating care is part of why health care in the US has lower than expected outcomes.

Please do not limit access! Have some compassion. Make these decisions as if it were your own family members. Anyone with Glaucoma is undeserved enough.

Do not limit glaucoma procedure because of insurance and costs. This is our eyesight you are denying

Please keep less invasive eye surgeries as a covered Medicare option. This save hundreds of dollars in medicines to control glaucoma

Please, I have two friends now threatened with glaucoma. These are people who are critical parts of our community and who will be crippled without this care. What is the rationale for picking away at our healthcare like this? I can only think that it is pushed by people blinded by more serious moral conditions. I am not versed in all the details of the science and the finance. But if you must remove care from Americans who have paid for Medicare for their entire lives, please do ensure that there is comparable or better care that is covered. Dr. Nancy Gerth, Idaho

Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness. Patients need all of the tools available to avoid blindness.

Please reconsider your position and let doctors choose their treatments!

My friend and many other people need these options available to them.

Thanks!

This change if allowed to happen will result in devastating and costly changes to healthcare for the nation. It will result in many patients who could receive vision saving care to go blind - causing not only individual loss of income and mental health effects but also a huge societal cost.

This petition will force people into blindness. How was this determination made esp given some of these techniques go back to the 1980ies.

As one of the millions of people who are on the watch for glaucoma due to strong family medical history. We need to have this early intervention option available!

Please help me and all glaucoma patients keep our eyesight! You may be saving money denying advance treatment but when we go blind you will be spending more.

I am in need of a MIG surgery and would appreciate a reconsideration of this current decision to limit their availability.

As many Options as possible for glaucoma care need to be open to doctors and their patients. Please allow MIGS to remain as just one option in the standard of care. Not every glaucoma patient is geriatric—we all deserve a fighting chance against glaucoma and it might be a 30 or 40 year fight. Eye drops do not work for every patient because of: allergic reactions, intolerability of side effects, loss of effectiveness over time, poor compliance because of attitude, cost, forgetfulness, or physical limits such as old age or poor eye sight. Many glaucoma doctors know their patients need to reduce or eliminate drops or obtain a further pressure reduction: adding a minimally invasive device, MIGS or performing a laser surgery fit this common need. The very old trabeculectomy surgery is very invasive, very risky, and often fails. MIGS are the middle step of care and for some is even the last step of care! They are very important.

My husband has benefited greatly from this surgery in both eyes now.

Very excited to get/retain treatments for glaucoma.

Allow patients and doctors to continue having access to implant-free, minimally invasive glaucoma procedures - canaloplasty, goniotomy, and cyclophotocoagulation. These procedures are not experimental and are essential in the glaucoma treatment armamentarium. If these proposals go into effect, those without the means to travel or pay out of pocket for care will be left without the choices available to others. Please protect glaucoma patients.

Please give senior citizens a chance to live better lives.