• BioSphere Medical (Rockland, Massachusetts) said that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued its Final Rule regarding hospital outpatient reimbursement for uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) and, accordingly, will increase such reimbursement by 113% to $5,639 per procedure from $2,642 per procedure beginning Jan. 1. This increase in Medicare reimbursement follows CMS’s acceptance of a recommendation made by the Ambulatory Payment Classification (APC) Panel that CMS consider reassigning CPT code 37210, which was created for UFE effective Jan. 1, 2007, to APC code 0229. APC code 0229 includes minimally invasive interventional procedures with clinical and resource characteristics more consistent with those of UFE. Such procedures include those that utilize intravascular catheters, imaging guidance, and implantable devices. In addition, the procedure room time and recovery period for UFE is comparable to the other procedures under APC code 0229. BioSphere Medical makes bioengineered microspheres to treat uterine fibroids, hypervascularized tumors and vascular malformations.

• BSD Medical (Salt Lake City) said that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued the final rules for its Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System, resulting in a reimbursement rate increase of 80% for the hyperthermia treatment CMS codes performed as hospital outpatient procedures. Outpatient procedures constitute the majority usage for BSD’s cancer systems. CMS reimbursement rates generally set the standard for the payment schedules used by commercial insurance carriers as well. The new reimbursement rates will become effective Jan. 1, 2008. BSD said it considers this increase in reimbursement a major step forward in its ongoing effort to commercialize its cancer therapy systems, increasing the financial incentive for hospitals to adapt to more effective cancer treatment modalities. BSD Medical makes systems used to deliver hyperthermia therapy for the treatment of cancer.

• Grant Instruments (Cambridge, UK) has unveiled a new line of DNA/RNA UV cabinets/PCR workstations, including standard, economy and double units, which feature a novel patented UV cleaner-recirculator system. This UV cleaner-recirculator system increases the maximum density of UV light treating the entire internal air volume, generating 25 cubic meters per hour air flow exchange to provide aseptic conditions for a variety of molecular biology and biochemical procedures. The recirculator can also provide constant cabinet decontamination making the environment suitable for demanding applications working with DNA/RNA, infectious and viral materials such as prions. Grant Instruments makes scientific, life sciences and data acquisition products.

• Health Dialog Services (Boston) said that its online decision support tool offering, Health Crossroads, received the highest rating in a comparison of four leading decision support tools in a recently released report by the Pacific Business Group on Health. The report, “Evaluation of Consumer Decision Support Tools: Helping People Make Health Care Decisions,” evaluated consumer support tools in the categories of treatment option support, hospital choice and personal cost decision support. In the treatment option support category, four tools, including Health Dialog’s Health Crossroads, were compared on provision of treatment and condition information, effectiveness of decision support techniques, and ease of website use. The report concluded, “Health Dialog’s Health Crossroads was rated highest among the competing products for its superior handling of patient priorities. The tool helps patients consider their preferences and explains the trade-offs in benefits and risks of alternative treatments, including the option of no treatment, for particular condition-choice scenarios. Health Crossroads® crisply frames the decision using key choice attributes and its content uses familiar language to help demystify complex issues.” Health Dialog provides care management services, including disease management.

• MGB Endoscopy (Berlin, Germany), in partnership with AltaSens (Thousand Oaks, California), reported the introduction of the MD-V camera, a high-definition video surgical instrument that delivers images with high resolution and high sensitivity at a real-time 60-fps frame rate. The companies said the MD-V is the world’s first HD endoscopy camera based on CMOS sensor technology, and it meets all practical and regulatory requirements. The MD-V can be deployed in even the most sterile operating rooms. The instrument head is fully qualified to sustain repeated sterilization cycles using disinfectant solutions and steam sterilization. The camera leverages AltaSens’ ProCamHD 2462 imaging System-on-Chip sensor, including its full video resolution of 1280 (H) x 720 (V) pixels, integrated 12-bit A-to-D conversion, and low-noise delivery of the full HD video via its Tapered-Reset technology. For the convenience of hospitals with different requirements, the camera supports HDMI, SDI, Composite and Y/C output formats.