In-office use of new medical technology is driving growth in Medicare spending, according to a new article published August 9 in the Wall Street Journal.
WSJ reporters analyzed Medicare billing data to find trends in Medicare spending. They discovered that new medical devices that allow doctors to perform tests they used to refer elsewhere made up four of the top 10 medical services that grew the most from 2012 to 2014: tear osmolarity, electronic brachytherapy, sweat tests, and electroretinography.
With respect to electronic brachytherapy, the article noted that the technology uses x-rays instead of radioactive material to treat some cancers, with systems manufactured by companies such as Xoft, a subsidiary of computer-aided detection (CAD) and radiation therapy firm iCAD.
Electronic brachytherapy devices are one of the fastest-growing of these in-office technologies, the WSJ said. Medicare initially assumed that radiation oncologists would use them for breast cancer treatment. However, dermatologists have discovered that they can be used to treat nonmelanoma skin cancer in their offices. In 2012, Medicare payments for the procedure were $7.8 million; in 2014, they were $95 million, and the bulk of these claims were for skin cancer, according to the publication.
The WSJ article can be found here.
