In response to requests by the American College of Radiology and other organizations to take a closer look at how hospitals report costs and to provide more guidance on consistency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it will accept comment on how such a process can be carried out. The ACR will provide very specific comments during the official comment period, which ends October 10.

Specifically, the ACR will comment that hospitals should not continue to categorize all CT studies (CT and CTA) together and will urge CMS to require that, in order to increase granularity, hospitals report studies at the CPT code level.

CMS also stated that the HOPPS Medicare conversion factor (CF) for 2007 will increase 3.4% in 2007. If the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) imaging cuts are not delayed, as called for in the ACR-supported Access to Medicare Imaging Act (HR 5704 and S. 3795), this step may lessen the impact of DRA cuts by bringing the HOPPS payment rate closer to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rate (due to a HOPPS 3.45% CF increase vs. a proposed MPFS 5.1% CF cut).

Other notable HOPPS changes proposed for 2007:

* One-time coverage of ultrasound screening for AAA when patients first enter the Medicare program as part of the preventative screening package.

* New payment method for brachytherapy seeds. The current separate payment for seeds expires 2007. For now, CMS will continue to pay separately for seeds and for the procedure.

* Movement of all PET and PET/CT scans from new technology APC to regular APCs resulting in same payment for both procedures which would reside in the same APC and be subject to the "2-times rule." The ACR will urge CMS to pay for these services from separate and stratified APCs.

The proposed creation of new stereotactic radiosurgery APCs; services will be paid at all different levels and types of methods.

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