Safeguarding access, fiscal responsibility and innovation: a comprehensive reimbursement framework for CAMPs to preserve the Medicare Trust Fund

This manuscript presents a unified and comprehensive policy framework addressing the flat-fee reimbursement model for skin substitutes, also referred to as cellular, acellular, and matrix-like products (CAMPs), proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). These products are vital to treating hard-to-heal wounds, which disproportionately affect older patients, and those patients who are disabled and medically underserved. While CMS aims to curtail excessive spending and introduce payment consistency, the current proposal threatens access to life-saving therapies, endangers patient outcomes, and may destabilise clinical delivery infrastructures and manufacturing ecosystems critical to wound care.