News Briefs
Bush seeks $125 million for health IT expansion
President Bush, emphasizing the benefits of health information technology during a recent visit to the Cleveland Clinic, announced that his fiscal year 2006 budget proposal will include $125 million for demonstration projects to test the effectiveness of health IT and allow for widespread adoption in the health care field.
The president said he also will seek another $50 million for health IT initiatives in fiscal year 2005, in addition to the $50 million Congress appropriated last year.
CMS expands Medicare coverage of ICDs
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has decided to expand Medicare coverage of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) to prevent sudden death in people with heart disease. It said it expects the decision to increase the number of Medicare beneficiaries eligible for an ICD by one-third, to nearly 500,000, including at least 25,000 additional patients in the first year of coverage.
As part of the coverage decision, CMS will require the submission of specific demographic, clinical, provider and device data into a data registry at the time of the procedure.
The agency said the registry process will ensure patients are receiving high-quality, medically necessary care, and provide valuable new information about the optimal use of ICDs.
CMS said it has made an ICD abstraction tool available on the Quality Network Exchange (QNET), the system hospitals use to abstract and send quality measures to CMS. The agency also is working with cardiology specialty societies, product manufacturers, health plans and experts from the clinical community to develop a registry that will continue to collect the data that the QNET registry has collected, as well as other data that will answer additional important questions on the use of ICDs.
President Bush, emphasizing the benefits of health information technology during a recent visit to the Cleveland Clinic, announced that his fiscal year 2006 budget proposal will include $125 million for demonstration projects to test the effectiveness of health IT and allow for widespread adoption in the health care field.Subscribe Now for Access
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