Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Read 3 CMS New Tech Reviews: (1) AI for Head CT (Pass), (2) AI for Pulm. Emb. (Proposed), (3) Pneumonia Pathogen Panel (Fail)

 As I noted in an earlier blog, on April 28, 2022, CMS released its initial assessment of 22 technologies proposed for FY2022 hospital inpatient new tech payments (here).

Two Technologies for Hospital Inpatient "AI"

Of note, one of the proposals today is for hospital inpatient use of artificial intelligence software in radiology.  This is the AIDOC BRIEFCASE FOR PE system by AIDOC.  

Last winter, CMS granted add on payments to a system for hospital inpatient use of artificial intelligence in stroke management.   This is the ContaCT software from VIZ.AI.

I've put both of these inpatient AI technologies in a zip file; link at bottom.   Both of these AI systems pre-read CT scans in queue and can highlight those that are 90% likely to be positive for first-in-line review.  This, in turn, should speed therapy for the stroke or for the pulmonary embolism.

CMS's Critique of Biofire Outcomes Data

In addition, and making a contrast, adjacent to the December 2020 "ContaCT decision" I noticed that CMS had published a negative analysis and negative decision for the Biofire Pneumonia Pathogen Panel.   

CMS criticized the Biofire panel has having inferred or speculated benefits rather than confirmed ones.   This is a frequent criticism of diagnostic tests, and for anyone planning diagnostics outcomes data or clinical utility arguments for CMS review, this example may be worth a read.  And interestingly CMS nixed extra payments for the Biofire pneumonia panel in 2H2020, at the height of the COVID epidemic, even knowing that a significant portion of the most complex cases likely had coinfections that would be hard to culture in patients on broad spectrum antibiotics.

Zip file of the three items, HERE.

See CMS announcement re a "AI CHALLENGE" contest, April 28, here.