Beneficiaries in the U.S. Medicare program have access to several technologies and procedures for treatment of glaucoma, but Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) seem to be looking sideways at some of these offerings. Both Wisconsin Physician Services and Palmetto GBA have floated draft local coverage proposals that deem procedures such as goniotomy and the combination of canaloplasty and trabeculectomy to be investigational, suggesting that claims for these and other services and devices will not be paid by these MACs.
The U.S. FDA’s September 2022 guidance for clinical decision support (CDS) software was controversial the moment the agency posted the document, prompting the filing of a citizen’s petition five months later. The CDS Coalition has penned a June 8 letter to FDA commissioner Robert Califf in an effort to draw a reaction from the agency, but the letter was accompanied by a summary of an analysis of CDS software with a machine learning (ML) component that suggests that such products that are in development may have to be reconsidered.
Proponents of telehealth have been pressing Congress to statutorily broaden coverage of telehealth since before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Telehealth Expansion Act of 2023 carries the weight of at least some of these expectations. The House Ways and Means Committee’s health subcommittee recently voted 30-12 to pass along the legislation to the full committee, but the bill operates principally to allow high-deductible health plans to cover telehealth benefits before the enrollee has met the deductible, leaving a substantial amount of telehealth terrain unaddressed.
The U.S. CMS has wrapped up a coverage analysis for seat elevation systems that are accessories for power wheelchairs, but the agency went above and beyond the strict terms laid out in the proposed decision memo.
The U.S.FDA posted two warning letters to medical device manufacturers June 6, one each to Irhythm Technologies Inc., and Steiner Biotechnology LLC, and both warnings include citations for marketing for claims that are not in the FDA-reviewed product labels.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) has been signed into law by U.S. President Joseph Biden, heralding a five-year span in which increases in discretionary budget spending will be limited to 1% after a flat funding picture in the coming fiscal year.
The intellectual property waivers for American vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic are still controversial, but the World Health Organization (WHO) is nonetheless seeking a similar set of waivers for therapies and tests for COVID. A subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee met June 6 to review these waivers, and subcommittee chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he intends to continue pushing legislation that would require the U.S. president to obtain congressional approval for agreeing to any such waivers in the future.
The U.S. FDA reported a class I recall for a subset of the Impella 5.5 with Smartassist due to leakage of purge fluid from a pump sidearm that could ultimately lead to a loss of pump function. Abiomed Inc., the maker of the device, had previously introduced corrective measures intended to suppress the problem with leakage, but those corrections have not completely resolved the problem, leading to the withdrawal of 466 units that were distributed in the U.S. between Sept. 8, 2021, and March 6, 2023.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) has been signed into law by U.S. President Joseph Biden, heralding a five-year span in which increases in discretionary budget spending will be limited to 1% after a flat funding picture in the coming fiscal year. While the news might seem to portend a flat budget picture for agencies such as the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, a new analysis by the Alliance for a Stronger FDA indicates that congressional intent might at least slightly overcome the limits imposed by the FRA.
U.S. FDA inspections are not always a pleasant experience, particularly when the end result is a warning letter. One company, Sea-Long Medical Systems LLC of Waxahachie, Texas, says the experience was a positive experience in that the company’s new ownership gained an important appreciation for the necessary rigors of medical device manufacturing.
