The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the prospective payment rule for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) for calendar year 2024, and advocates had some luck prompting the agency to boost the base ESRD payment rate. However, Atlanta-based Pain Care Labs Inc. came up short in its transitional add-on payment application for the Buzzy Pro for relief of puncture wound site pain because, according to CMS, the device does not represent a substantial improvement over currently available remedies.
Olympus Medical Corp. instituted a class I recall of its UHI-4 high flow insufflation device due to reports that the device may over-inflate and potentially create embolisms. The recall affects more than 3,100 units distributed in the U.S. between May 2012 and August 2023, all of which should not be used until the company resolves the problem.
Pulkit Grover, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, reported a new approach for electrode placement that explicitly exploits the thresholding phenomenon of neurons to achieve significant gains in focal neural stimulation.
Most of the patients and advocacy groups speaking at the first of 10 public listening sessions questioned the Biden administration’s talking points that U.S. Medicare’s prescription drug price negotiation will be good for beneficiaries because it will improve access to costly drugs by lowering prices.
The Biden administration has issued an executive order (EO) for artificial intelligence (AI), which addresses not only national security considerations, but public health considerations as well.
Advocates of expanded use of telehealth in the U.S. may believe they have an unfairly high evidentiary bar to meet to bring payers on board, but that evidentiary requirement just received support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The advent of FDA-approved therapies for Alzheimer’s disease has had some downstream regulatory effects, including that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently announced it will eliminate the coverage with evidence development (CED) requirement for PET imaging for beta amyloid imaging for Alzheimer's disease.
In a show of bipartisan solidarity, members of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging voiced their support Oct. 26 for a new regulatory pathway to quicken access to new drugs for rare diseases that have no approved treatments.
Left atrial appendage (LAA) occlusion procedures are designed to reduce the risk of thromboembolism in patients who have non-valvular atrial fibrillation, but a study presented at the 2023 Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics annual meeting in San Francisco demonstrated that about half of patients continue to have LAA leaks – and potentially the risk of dangerous blood clots and stroke – a year after the procedure.
The EU approved the first drug-coated balloon for treatment of in-stent restenosis nearly a decade ago, but U.S. physicians continue to have their hands tied in treating the fairly common problem. Results from Boston Scientific Corp.’s investigational device exemption trial for its Agent paclitaxel-coated balloon presented in San Francisco at Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics could finally put the tool in the hands of cardiologists. The device demonstrated a nearly 50% reduction in the risk of target lesion revascularization and target vessel myocardial infarction compared to conventional balloon angioplasty.
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