Friday, November 30, 2018

Very Brief Blog: GAO Releases Report on CMS Lab Overpayments and Risks

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GAO has issued an unusual report that implementation of PAMA lab pricing "May Lead to Billions in Excess Payments."   This wil...

Very Brief Blog: CMS Releases First Transmittal on NCD for Cancer Tumor Testing

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In March 2018, CMS released its ground-breaking National Coverage Determination for next generation sequencing tests used in oncology.  CM...
Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Very Brief Blog: HHS Floats New Part D Pricing & Policy

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Briefly, on November 26, 2018, CMS released proposed new rules that would somewhat raise competitive pricing pressure among Part D plans, an...
Monday, November 26, 2018

Very Brief Blog: National Academy of Medicine Report on Genomic Disparities

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The National Academy of Medicine runs an ongoing roundtable of events on "Genomics and Precision Health" - home page here . On ...

FDA Will Soon Float New 510(k) Guidance; Positions on Drug/Software Pairs and Bayesian Designs

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Over the Thanksgiving weekend, FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb tweeted that FDA was about to launch new initiatives to "modernize...
Wednesday, November 21, 2018

OBSOLETE: 2018 VERSION OF CMS GENOMIC CODING INSTRUCTIONS (Later Changed)

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NOTE:  THIS 2018 BLOG IS POSTED  FOR HISTORICAL REASONS ONLY. CMS HAS MADE SEVERAL UPDATES TO THE TEXT OF THE NCCI REGARDING MOLECULAR COD...
Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Medicare's Public Measure for Hospital Cost of Pneumonia Care & Mortality

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Medicare has a large number of publicly available hospital measures, some of which are more intuitive than others.   (For Medicare's sep...
Friday, November 16, 2018

Very Brief Blog: Forbes Publishes Deep Dive Article on Flatiron

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At Forbes, in the November 30 issue, journalists Matt Herper and Ellie Kincaid publish a deep-dive, 4000-word article about Flatiron Health ...

CMS Releases CY2017 SEP-1 Sepsis Management Data; Academics Perform Badly

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On October 31, 2018, CMS released hospital performance data on quality measures, for CY2017.   This gave the first full year of data for SEP...

CMS Releases CY2019 Final Crosswalk Pricing

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On October 19, 2018, CMS released final gapfill pricing for CY2019 lab codes that were under the gapfill process. On November 16, 2018, C...
Monday, November 12, 2018

Next AMA PLA Conference Call on New Codes: November 19, 2018

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Get the holiday Thanksgiving week off to an exciting start by listening in on the quarterly AMA PLA Applications public conference call, Nov...
Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Very Brief Blog: Google AI System Speeds Surgical Pathology Work

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In the field of radiology, Qure AI has raised over $30M to bring AI methods into radiologic diagnostics ( here ), and the impact of AI on r...

Very Brief Blog: Scott Gottlieb Discussed FDA's New Vision at Milken Institute (October 2018)

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On October 24, 2018, as part of the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit, Scott Gottlieb gave a detailed interview on his vision for the...

Very Brief Blog: Resources on Pharma Digital Disruption (McKinsey); Opioid Addiction Digital Disruption (Rock Health)

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Citations to two detailed white papers today. Digital Disruption in Pharma   McKinsey provides a whopping 204 page collation of its arti...
Friday, November 2, 2018

Very Brief Blog: CMS Publishes Notice of Future Rule on Innovative Medical Devices

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Update - See also article in MedTechDive, here , October 2018. Over the past several months, summer/fall 2018, there have been several ...