Dear AuntMinnie Member,
The rejection of CT colonography by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force wasn't the only tough blow delivered to medical imaging in the past several weeks. In late September, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) turned down a bid for expanded reimbursement for sodium fluoride (NaF) PET scans.
In its September 16 proposed decision memo, CMS wrote that it believes clinical evidence doesn't support expanded payments for NaF-PET to detect bone metastases. The agency proposed to continue for the next 12 months the current program, in which payment is made only for patients scanned at sites participating in the National Oncologic PET Registry.
The rejection of NaF-PET was a disappointment to many in the PET community who have worked laboriously to convince CMS that the exam is worthy of expanded reimbursement. Now it's back to the drawing board. Find out how PET proponents plan to proceed by clicking here.
In other PET news, click here to read about an intriguing project at the University of California, Davis to develop a new type of PET camera. Researchers there believe the scanner will support total-body imaging with a full ring of PET detectors running the length of the system's bore. The group has received a $15.5 million grant to pursue the research.
Skipping CT for blunt trauma
Can the use of CT be reduced in the assessment of patients presenting to the emergency room with blunt trauma? Researchers from California think it can, according to a new article in our CT Community.
The research group developed two decision rules that use mostly clinical criteria for determining whether patients should be sent on for CT scanning. They believe the rules could catch most major cases of severe trauma while reducing CT overuse in patients who don't need it.
Find out how well their method worked by clicking here, or visit our CT Community at ct.auntminnie.com.
Final MU rules
The U.S. government's meaningful use (MU) program for spurring the adoption of healthcare IT is moving into its final phase. The agencies overseeing the MU program this week issued final rules for stage 3 of the program, and they also added modifications to stage 1 and stage 2 that are designed to make it easier for healthcare providers to meet the program's requirements. Learn more by clicking here.
