CMS ANNOUNCES MEDICARE WILL COVER ICDS
Mark McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), said the agency was "poised to expand" coverage of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) based on new research showing they could increase the chances of survival in substantial numbers of elderly people on Medicare.
Medicare has covered ICDs mostly for patients who had already suffered potentially fatal disturbances in their heart rhythms. Officials, however, decided to expand the coverage because of new evidence that ICDs can save the lives of many people who are at increased risk for such episodes but have not yet suffered them.
More than half a million Americans with congestive heart failure could be eligible for ICDs and accompanying surgery under the plan. The coverage decision coincides with the publication of the "Sudden Cardiac Death in Heart Failure Trial (SCD-HeFT)" results in The New England Journal of Medicine.