The U.S. Congress has passed a continuing resolution (CR) for the fiscal 2024 budget, an exercise that has become all too common as a substitute for a full suite of spending bills in an era of growing deficits.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has followed through on an earlier threat to reduce payments for various sorts of radiology services in the physician fee schedule, including those invoked during episodes of cancer care, but Congress may yet intervene.
The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) has filed its comments for two draft Medicare rules, citing ongoing concerns over how Medicare pays for a variety of aspects of medical imaging procedures.
The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) has filed its comments for two draft Medicare rules, citing ongoing concerns over how Medicare pays for a variety of aspects of medical imaging procedures. MITA’s executive director, Patrick Hope, said the Medicare hospital outpatient program is overdue for an overhaul of its packaging policy for payments for radiopharmaceuticals and that the Medicare physician fee schedule should be insulated from further cuts for the professional component of imaging procedures, changes Hope said are necessary to ensure continued patient access to these services.
The U.S. CMS has released the draft Medicare physician fee schedule for calendar year 2024, inviting rebuttal from physician groups thanks to a proposed cut in rates of 1.25%. However, the draft’s proposed cut of roughly 2% for radiation oncology services has also provoked stakeholders who blasted the proposal as a detriment to cancer care, a particularly ironic move given the emphasis on the Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot.
The U.S. CMS has finalized the physician fee rule for calendar year 2023, a document that imposes an across-the-board pay cut of approximately 4.5% for physician Medicare services. However, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) blasted the final rule’s failure to provide what they believe are appropriate rates for cardiac ablation services, a position backed by two med-tech trade associations in their comments to the docket for the draft rule.
The annual publication of the draft Medicare physician fee schedule (MPFS) is an event, but this year’s draft has drawn substantial criticism from across the board, despite the promise of more coverage of telehealth. The Medical Imaging & Technology Association (MITA) and a coalition of surgeons have blasted the draft as a hazard to patient access to both evaluation and management (E/M) services and surgical procedures, both of which present substantial headwinds for the medical device industry.
The draft Medicare physician fee schedule (MPFS) is always an event for makers of drugs and devices, and this year is no exception. This time, the draft proposes non-controversially to formalize the specialty practice of heart failure and transplant cardiology, a move that was anticipated. While telehealth would enjoy a renewal of momentum under the terms of the draft, novel oncology drugs would be reimbursed at the wholesale acquisition cost plus 1.35 percent, a considerable shave from the current standard of WAC+6.
