Monday, November 3, 2025

Podcast: MedTech Talk. Valuation bubble; Reimbursement challenges.

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Recently I ran across the podcast, MEDTECH TALK, and I'll mention a few that caught my attention.  (I'm citing a couple from 2023, 2...

CAP's Newest Podcast - CIPI Council on Informatics and Pathology innovation

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 CAP launches a new podcast, CIPI CONNECTIONS. ### CIPI Cup One of the several Councils of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) is CIP...
Sunday, November 2, 2025

CMS Releases PFS Final Rule Despite Shut-Down. OPPS Final Rule Pending.

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Each fall, CMS normally releasing the final PFS rule and final OPPS rule on November 1, giving them 60 days to take effect (January 1).   CM...

PLA Codes at Novitas: Vastly Less Controlled than at MolDx

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The Novitas MAC seems to go through one payment disaster after another , with notoriously high and bizarre-looking payments for 81408 (rare ...
Thursday, October 30, 2025

Chat GPT Asks: How Do Commercial, Medicare, and Medicare Advantage Rates Compare?

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The point of this blog is just to show how Chat GPT 5 performs, to a request for a medical policy essay. Issue:  Now and then I see an artic...

AMA Releases PLA Applications for 4Q2025

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 Each quarter, AMA receives and processes a couple dozen PLA code applications.  The ones for this quarter are posted.  There will be an AMA...

AMA Publishes Summary of Panel Actions for CPT September 2025

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You may have attended AMA CPT September 2025 for its infamous " Tab 94 ," the proposal to create a novel coding appendix (sort of ...
Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Legislation Watch: The Health Technology Investment Act of 2025; S. 1399

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It's become a cliche' that most action occurs in the Executive Branch, with a sleepy agenda on the Hill. But one topic of interest i...

PBS Runs Documentary on the Life of Secretary of Health, RFK Jr

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This week, I watched the two-hour documentary on PBS Frontline about his career and controversies.  See the video (currently streaming)  her...

Senate Letter Criticizes the "AMA Monopoly" on the U.S. Coding System

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October saw a sharply worded letter from Senator Cassidy to the AMA, criticizing the "monopoly" (his term) on the US main coding s...

Science Policy; Banned Words at NIH; Is This the Time to Do a PhD?

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Two interesting science policy articles this week.   I think both are firewalled, so I'll include short summaries.  Here are the titles:...
Friday, October 24, 2025

Peer Review Is Too Slow; How Impactful Can AI Be?

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In Annals of Internal Medicine, Kieran Quinn et al. ask, how can we re-think how we disseminate medical research?   Can we expand the statu...

Alzheimer tests and FDA: Location, location, location.

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HEADER:  FDA’s 2025 Alzheimer’s test approvals reveal a new split in strategy—Fujirebio’s plasma ratio test is indicated for centers for dia...

AMA Upgrades Its RVU Database - RBRVS Data Manager

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AMA creates CPT codes, an obligatory code set for communications between providers and payers in the US, under HIPAA law.  It also values th...

ARPA-H Gets New Leader: Alicia Jackson

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 ARPA-H was recently in the news for its major initiatives in oncology and oncology diagnostics (ADAPT).   (Puzzlingly, this burst of agency...