A committee of the House of Representatives advanced a bill that if passed will give eligible breakthrough medical devices four years of Medicare coverage.
The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has recommended that physicians in the U.K. use the least expensive, clinically appropriate TAVR device when possible, concluding a pricing review that commenced roughly a year ago.
Doing his version of the Texas Two-Step, Texas Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton is again shuffling Eli Lilly and Co. into a state courtroom – this time for allegedly overstepping the anti-kickback line.
The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated its guidance for the use of single-procedure insertion of scaffolds for knee cartilage repairs, specifying that only qualified surgeons should perform the procedure.
An advisory committee for the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services endorsed a series of patient- and clinician-reported outcomes that might not be reflected in the evidentiary bases for currently available technologies. This development suggests some manufacturers will have to conduct new studies of their devices in order to sustain Medicare coverage.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a draft coverage memo for cardiac contractility modulation (CCM), which offers coverage with evidence development for the company’s Optimizer line of devices. CMS said it will issue the final coverage memo by Oct. 8, 2025, which will mark the achievement of an objective the company set for itself more than two decades ago.
The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has endorsed the use of pulsed field ablation for atrial fibrillation, and while several trusts in the U.K. are already using these devices for their patients, the endorsement is certain to expand utilization in the U.K., which according to data from Clarivate’s Epidemiology Intelligence may come to nearly 4 million.
The U.S. Office of Inspector General issued a report stating the Medicare program often pays for physician services that are not performed post-surgery, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services responded it is in no position to immediately begin tracking all excess payments under these global codes.
Australia’s largest health insurance company, Medibank Private Ltd., is the first to reimburse for psychedelic treatment in Australia, funding Emyria Ltd.’s MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine) program for post-traumatic stress disorder offered through the Perth Clinic.
As the health care industry eagerly awaits the U.K. government’s 10-year plan to transform the national health service, persistent systemic challenges may make change difficult to realize. While the deployment of AI, medical technologies and diagnostic tools are crucial to this transformation, barriers to adoption must be addressed for the plan to be successful.
