Health Imaging & IT - August 2008 - (Page 6)

neWS upDate Government Watch Congress overrides Bush veto of Medicare bill, repealing physician cuts Both houses of Congress garnered the two-thirds majorities needed to override the presidential veto of H.R. 6331, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008. The House overrode the veto by a large margin hours after the president issued the veto on July 15. The bill repeals the 10.6 percent physician payment cut called for by Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula that went into effect July 1. The legislation also calls for providers of advanced diagnostic imaging services to be accredited in order to receive payment for the technical component of those services. fDa Spotlight  FDA issues pediatric medical imaging advisory The FDA has issued a consumer update on safety in pediatric medical imaging to increase awareness for the need to decrease the radiation dose administered to children during CT scanning.  FDA warns that spread of computers creates new dangers for medical devices A federal team of software experts discovered a flaw in a computer code that caused a drug pump to administer heavy overdoses, which led to a recall, warnings and rewriting of the equipment’s software. Of 23 recalls last year that the FDA classified as life-threatening, three involved faulty software. CMS proposes 3% increase for outpatient payments, new imaging measures The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has a new proposed rule, including a 3 percent annual inflation update, which will update payment rates for 2009 and improve quality of services provided in hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs). The agency is proposing to add four new measures of imaging efficiency to the seven existing quality measures for purposes of the 2010 update. The proposed rule will update rates paid under both the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and the ASC Prospective Payment System.  FDA incentive pay jumps 29% amid troubling times FDA employees received more than $35 million in incentive pay in 2007, despite cries from Congress that the agency’s earlier bonuses to senior officials were excessive. Seventeen of the highest paid FDA officials earned more than $200,000. Bush approves $150M budget boost to FDA President George W. Bush has approved a supplemental appropriations bill, giving the FDA an additional $150 million for its 2008-2009 fiscal year budget. Among the initiatives that the additional budget will find are: $28 million for Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and related field activities in the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA); $12.7 million for Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and related ORA field activities; and $20.1 million for the Center for Devices and Radiological Health and related ORA field activities.  FDA clears Abbott DES The FDA approved Abbott’s Xience V everolimus-eluting coronary stent system for the treatment of coronary artery disease. Abbott’s drug-eluting stent is the fourth on the U.S. market after Cordis’ Cypher sirolimus-eluting stent, Boston Scientific’s Taxus paclitaxel-eluting stent, and Medtronic’s Endeavor zotarolimus-eluting stent. DEA proposes rules to allow for e-prescribing The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Friday issued a proposed rule that would allow the electronic prescribing of controlled substances. The agency will accept public comments until Sept. 25. The proposed rules would require doctors to use two forms of identification for each transmission of e-prescriptions for controlled substances, in addition to an annual audit of each system by a certified public accountancy. The regulations would permit pharmacies to receive, dispense and archive e-prescriptions. 6 Health Imaging & IT | august 2008 Joint Commission publishes 2009 standards online The Joint Commission’s revised standards, rationales and elements of performance for 2009 are now available online. The standards will take effect Jan. 1, 2009, and were placed online to give organizations time to become familiar with the new language, ordering and numbering. The changes are part of the Standards Improvement Initiative, which focuses on clarifying standards language, ensuring that standards are program-specific, deleting redundant and nonessential standards and consolidating similar standards. Correction: the photo caption on page 20 of the July issue misidentified secondlook mammography cad technology as a product of viatronix. in fact, secondlook is a product of icad inc. We apologize for the error. STAY CONNECTED: for daily news, log onto Healthimaging.com Healthimaging.com http://Healthimaging.com http://Healthimaging.com

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Health Imaging & IT - August 2008

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