ARLINGTON, Va., September 12, 2025 (view online) – As the world comes together this week for the first World Radiotherapy Awareness Day, the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and organizations across the cancer community are uniting in federal advocacy to support access to life-saving radiation therapy.

“Radiation oncology is a lifeline for more than one million people with cancer in the US and millions more globally, and ASTRO is leading the charge to ensure these individuals have access to state-of-the-art care close to home,” said Howard Sandler, MD, FASTRO, Chair of the ASTRO Board of Directors. “Working closely with our valued partners across radiation oncology, we are fighting for policy changes that benefit our patients who rely on the Medicare program to support their cancer care.”

In official comments submitted today to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz, ASTRO urged CMS to make important changes to the proposed 2026 Medicare physician and hospital outpatient payment rules released in July to ensure that radiation therapy services are reimbursed fairly, fostering equal access in communities nationwide. ASTRO’s comment letter applauds the Trump Administration for recognizing longstanding challenges in valuing radiation therapy services and offers policy recommendations to help new payment proposals realize their full potential.
Specifically, ASTRO supports Medicare’s plan to use hospital outpatient cost data to inform freestanding technical reimbursement for many common radiation therapies but, critically, urges the Agency to use the appropriate hospital data and coding structure to reflect significant changes to key radiation codes starting January 1, 2026. ASTRO also partnered with multiple radiation oncology organizations to reach a unified policy solution that addresses technical flaws in the proposed rules.

“By reassigning the new radiation treatment codes to hospital payment groups that more accurately reflect their true costs, CMS can begin putting the brakes on this runaway train of reimbursement cuts. Failure to make these necessary corrections in the final rule this fall could be a death knell in 2026 to community-based radiation oncology practices that serve hundreds of thousands of people with cancer,” said Dr. Sandler.

ASTRO recently reported a nationwide physician survey that found further cuts to Medicare reimbursement would increase patient wait times for radiation treatment and force clinics to downsize, causing patient access to cancer care to suffer with a disproportionate impact on rural communities. After more than 25% in cuts since 2013, critical adjustments to Medicare’s July proposal would help begin to stabilize payments, but more work is needed on comprehensive payment reform for radiation oncology to enhance access and quality while lowering costs.

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