ARTICLE SUMMARY:
In this week’s Pathways Picks: Recent CPT coding decisions for renal denervation, tricuspid valve repair, and other medtech; US government shutdown updates; a new annual device fee in the UK; predetermined change control plans go global; Cigna supports prescription digital therapeutics; FDA vet joins Fogarty; and more.
CPT Picks
Key outcomes from AMA’s September meeting:
Renal denervation codes rejected. An effort to institute billing codes that would support more routine adoption and reimbursement of renal denervation systems to treat hypertension was unsuccessful during the CPT Editorial Panel meeting last month. For the second year in a row, stakeholders tried and failed to get the panel to convert current Category III codes tagging the procedure as an emerging technology to Category I codes to reflect a more routine practice that payors should support. The rejection was included in the panel’s official summary of its September 18-20 meeting in Chicago, published October 3. The news comes as Medtronic (Symplicity Spyral) and Record Medical (Paradise) are waiting on CMS to finalize a national coverage policy for their FDA-approved systems (see below, “NCDs in limbo”).
