Given makes CMS coding progress
Given Imaging (Yokneam, Israel) reported that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Baltimore) has determined that hospital coding for capsule endoscopy of the esophagus using the company’s PillCam ESO, camera-in-a-capsule, for detecting esophageal disorders, is described by the American Medical Association’s CPT code 91110, along with modifier 52. For Medicare patients, hospitals can now report PillCam ESO procedures using CPT 91110-52.
“A uniform mechanism for reporting Medicare claims for the PillCam platform is a major step toward gaining reimbursement coverage for PillCam ESO,” said Gavriel Meron, Given’s president and CEO. “With that coding determination in place, we can now focus our efforts on securing coverage policies for PillCam ESO.”
Given Imaging’s initial PillCam product, PillCam SB, which is used to detect small bowel disorders, has been reimbursed under CPT code 91110 since 2004.
Given is developing a line of PillCam video capsules for detecting disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Its technology platform is the Given Diagnostic System, featuring the PillCam video capsule, a disposable, miniature video camera contained in a capsule, which is ingested by the patient.
Cleveland Clinic first to install Siemens’ Axiom Artis
The Cleveland Clinic has become the first facility to install the Axiom Artis dBC Magnetic Navigation System from Siemens Medical Solutions (Malvern, Pennsylvania), which the company calls “the world’s first biplane magnetic navigation system.”
The Axiom Artis dBC Magnetic Navigation System is capable of improving the ease and accuracy of catheter-based procedures, facilitating increased efficiency and productivity in interventional medicine, Siemens said. Its biplane configuration enables clinicians at the Cleveland Clinic to use the system as either a biplane angiography C-arm system or as a magnetic navigation system.
The Cleveland Clinic imaged its first patient with the magnetic navigation system in July. The facility’s use of the technology will provide treatment capabilities as well as opportunities for research and education.
Andrea Natale, director, electrophysiology laboratories, and co-section head, pacing and electrophysiology in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, said: ”The flexibility of the system’s biplane configuration allows us to perform procedures we previously were unable to complete on one system, saving valuable time.”
The Axiom system integrates Siemens’ most advanced digital fluoroscopic imaging system, the Axiom Artis flat-panel detector system, with Stereotaxis’ (St. Louis) Niobe Magnetic Navigation System, to direct and digitally control catheter- and guidewire-based devices along complex paths within the heart and coronary vasculature.
Using computer-controlled permanent magnets external to the body for orienting the magnetic tip of specially designed catheters and guidewires, the system allows for 360-degree rotation of the catheter for greater precision and better movement.