Category: Reimbursement
Reimbursement
Congress has demonstrated that it is incapable of designing policies to reform healthcare reimbursement and it doesn't have the political courage to set standards and allow the incentives created by those standards to force change.
Three health care reimbursement developments of interest in the last few days:
"Do you have a reimbursement code?" is wrong question when it comes to ensuring reimbursement for a new medical technology. Here's what you need to know to clear a path to reimbursement for an innovative device.
When pitching to potential life sciences technology investors, entrepreneurs know that they need to demonstrate a clear path to reimbursement. Angels, VCs and strategic partners don't want to commit resources to develop something that won't get adequately paid for in a reasonable timeframe. That makes perfectly good sense. Indeed, I'd argue that the need to assess a technology's likely reimbursement status begins even earlier than the investment pitch.
Will comparative effectiveness research change the nature of the competitive landscape for medical device companies?
If healthcare reform legislation now before Congress becomes law, it will certainly contain a clearly articulated organization structure and a fairly generous flow of funds to develop and implement a robust comparative effectiveness research program.
It's that time of year again — time for the annual rite of changes to coding and reimbursement rules. Are you ready?
Nothing is as constant as change, especially at this time of year in the world of coding and reimbursement. For example, are you aware of the following new developments?
- Physician Coding: The American Medical Assn.'s CPT 2010 coding manual was shipped to healthcare providers in October. It contains all the new, revised and deleted Level I codes; Category II (performance measurement) codes and Category III (T codes for emerging technology, services and procedures) that become effective Jan. 1, 2010. Now is the time to become familiar with any changes related to procedures that may involve your products.
The flap over proposed mammography screening guidelines exposes the difficulty of rational discourse on healthcare reform.
Public furor, professional hand-wringing and political posturing over a revised recommendation on mammography screening for breast cancer issued this month by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force points to a pair of little-discussed but critical impediments to real progress in improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of our healthcare system:
- Our primary media sources of information are increasingly incapable of dealing effectively and informatively with complex or subtle issues.
The Tewksbury, Mass.-based company warns shareholders that changes in physician reimbursements could lead to a bumpy road ahead.
Officials at Cambridge Heart Inc. (CAMH) are watching Congress with great interest right now, and not only because of legislation that may create a tax on medical devices.
A pair of examples, one public and one private, of innovative programs aimed at improving the healthcare system.
While Harry Reid dithers about the final shape of the Senate's reform legislation and industry quivers over the prospect of a federal excise tax on medical devices, some key actors – both public and private – are forging ahead with creative initiatives to control health care costs and improve quality and consumer choice.
