Dear AuntMinnie Member,
It was an anxiously awaited decision, but likely not one that will make many PET proponents very happy. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) today proposed paying for only one PET scan for Alzheimer's disease, rejecting broader coverage of the modality for imaging beta amyloid as a sign of dementia or neurodegenerative disease.
PET advocates had been hoping that CMS would give the go-ahead to broader use of PET for detecting the buildup of beta amyloid in the brain, which a growing body of research has found to be an early indicator of risk for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. But in today's proposed decision memo, the agency said that evidence is lacking of PET's effectiveness for all but a narrow indication of excluding Alzheimer's disease.
CMS said it will pay for one PET scan to exclude Alzheimer's disease, but even that comes with a caveat: such scans will have to be performed as part of a coverage with evidence development (CED) program similar to what the agency used to collect data for PET oncology indications. Learn more by clicking here, or visit our Molecular Imaging Digital Community at molecular.auntminnie.com.
More signs of imaging's slowdown
As if we need to be told, a new study published in this month's edition of the Journal of the American College of Radiology confirms the recent slowdown in medical imaging utilization in the Medicare program.
Researchers from the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute looked at Medicare spending on imaging from 2003 to 2011, and they found that imaging use is going down, no matter how you slice it. A major factor in the decline was the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which arrested and then reversed the trend line of spending growth that Medicare experienced in the early 2000s.
The question is: What now? With multiple studies confirming the slowdown in medical imaging, will patient care be compromised? Are federal policymakers listening? Read more about the study by clicking here.
Conviction in NY fraud scheme
Do you remember a few years back when insurer Allstate sued a collection of radiology firms for fraud? Well, it turns out that Allstate may have been on to something.
New York state officials late last month announced that a businessman who owned several of the firms had pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and money laundering. They say that Arthur Bogoraz set up a collection of radiology companies using personal information taken from radiologists without their consent, then bilked payors in the state's no-fault insurance program of millions of dollars in imaging services.
It wasn't easy bringing Bogoraz to justice -- he initially fled to the Ukraine to escape the charges; however, he was apprehended in 2011 at an airport in Puerto Rico, after flying his private plane there from the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. Chances are he'll find his lifestyle for the next 3.5 to seven years to be considerably more modest. Learn more by clicking here.
Imaging signs of H7N9 flu
The appearance of the avian H7N9 flu virus has been generating headlines since the first cases appeared in China earlier this year. The virus is believed to be more deadly than the H1N1 virus that gripped the world in near-panic in 2009.
A new study published in Radiology this week gives radiologists some hints of what to look for in cases of H7N9 infection. Chinese researchers provide some of the first radiologic images of 12 infected patients, with both CT and radiography represented.
The researchers found that those infected with the virus all had characteristic patterns of lung lesions, and the infection usually seemed more prevalent on one side of the lungs than the other. Find out what else to look for -- with images -- by clicking here, or visit our CT Digital Community at ct.auntminnie.com.
