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Healthcare QuickLinks No. 1607

Healthcare is ever changing, so it’s important to stay up to date on advancements and issues that may impact the development, operation, maintenance, and growth of your services. Here are some important developments:

Advances in Cardiology Will be Made by Integrating New Data Sources and Technologies

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf is calling on cardiologists to embrace new technologies and data sources, such as genetic sequencing, regenerative medicine, personal electronic devices and social media, in order to improve patient outcomes moving forward. Califf, himself a renowned cardiologist, makes the call in an editorial published in the August edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiologists. Continue reading…

Arrhythmic Event Risk High in Early Phase of Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Patients with dilated cardiomyopathy have a significant risk of major arrhythmic events, even in the early stages of disease, according to research published in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology. Pasquale Losurdo, MD, of University Hospital “Ospedali Riuniti” in Trieste, Italy, and colleagues studied 952 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy who were included in the Heart Muscle Disease Registry of Trieste from 1988 to 2014. They were interested in determining prevalence, characterization, and possible indicators of early sudden cardiac death/malignant ventricular arrhythmias. Continue reading…

Will Congress Repeal the Stark Law?

Imagine a world where there were no physician self-referral laws. Would physicians change their current ownership and compensation arrangements? Would fraud and abuse in healthcare rise? Would administrative burdens and costs decrease, allowing for an increase in compensation and decrease in healthcare costs? In recent hearings conducted by the Senate Finance Committee, physicians and other industry stakeholders sought not just to revamp the Stark Law, but to fully repeal it. Continue reading…

Using Tc 99m PYP Cardiac Imaging May Help Diagnose and Detect Patients With Heart Failure

A retrospective cohort study found that using technetium 99m pyrophosphate (Tc 99m PYP) cardiac imaging helped detect and diagnose patients with transthyretin-related cardiac amyloidosis, a cause of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. The imaging technique also could accurately differentiate transthyretin-related cardiac amyloidosis from AL cardiac amyloidosis. Lead researcher Adam Castano, MD, MS, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and colleagues published their results online in JAMA Cardiology in August. Continue reading…

2017 OPPS Proposed Rule: CMS Revises Status and Comment Indicators

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed several changes for status and comment indicators in the 2017 OPPS proposed rule in an attempt to better identify codes and services for providers. They are proposing to replace status indicator E (services not paid, non-allowed item or service) with two more specific status indicators, and four comment indicators, carrying over three already in effect. Continue reading…

Bundled Payments: Tipping Point in Value-Based Care?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) latest bundled payments proposal takes a bold step toward addressing Medicare payment reform for some of the most common, complicated, and costly care scenarios in U.S. healthcare. The Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) program was based on provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that aimed to test the ability of bundled payments to improve care quality by placing more onus for financial and performance accountability on providers. The program looks to transition healthcare’s traditional fee-for-service model to a more coordinated care effort with particular attention paid to post-acute follow-through. Continue reading…

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