CT Heart Scans’ Continued Coverage Approved by Medicare
Monday, July 28th, 2008Medicare had proposed stopping coverage for CT scans used to diagnose heart disease, but after receiving complaints from many Medical Societies including the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology, they reversed their decision.
According to the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology – the “policy would have a profoundly negative impact on Medicare beneficiaries by limiting needed access to this technology for clinically appropriate indications.”
High-tech scans are one of the fastest growing areas of health-care spending, and The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service is determined to cuts costs. But for now, the agency will let the Regional Medicare carriers make their own decisions on this and they usually tend to cover the test.
Medicare paid for an estimated 70,000 of the heart scans in 2006, at a cost of $40 million to $50 million.
The scans can serve a purpose similar to conventional angiography, in which X-ray images of the coronary vessels heart are enhanced with a dye injected by a catheter. A set of guidelines, created by several medical societies, recommends using the scans only on certain patients who have some evidence of heart disease, such as those with chest pain and a hard-to-evaluate stress test.
Since CT scans are less invasive than angiography, there is some concern that they might be used for screening patients who don’t show symptoms of disea
