Abiomed (NSDQ:ABMD) said today that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plan to maintain the reimbursement rate for treatment with its Impella heart pump when new rates go into effect this fall.
The federal healthcare bureau is preparing to move from the ICD-9 slate of reimbursement codes to the ICD-10 version in October. The changeover won’t affect the rate for reimbursement for treatment with the Impella device, a catheter-based pump used to assist the heart in patients with heart failure.
ABMD shares climbed 4.7% to $27.44 apiece today on the news.
Last year a CMS committee meeting prompted Northland Capital Markets analyst Suraj Kalia to surmise that the ICD-10 update would cut the rate for treatment with the Impella device. Abiomed shares plunged 19% on the speculation, only to rebound when the company explained that the CMS proposal wouldn’t necessarily mean any changes to the codes assigned to treatment with Impella. The stock surged further in October 2013 after CMS scrapped the cut altogether.
Danvers, Mass.-based Abiomed said yesterday that it reached the enrollment goal for the Recover Right trial of its Impella RP right-side heart pump.