WASHINGTON, D.C. -- AdvaMed has released a report that questions the methodology and findings of a survey commissioned by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) on utilization rates of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) equipment. The AdvaMed report, prepared by United BioSource Corporation (UBC), concluded that the results of the MedPAC survey "should not form the basis for evidence-based decision making."

AdvaMed is concerned the flawed information from the MedPAC survey might be used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to justify significantly raising their current assumptions of imaging equipment use rates, which in turn would lead to drastic reductions in Medicare payments for imaging services.

"Patient access to potentially lifesaving imaging services will be threatened if CMS bases its reimbursement decisions on the information contained in the MedPAC survey," stated Stephen J. Ubl, AdvaMed president and CEO. "The resulting Medicare payment reductions will not cover the costs of imaging services, which can help detect diseases earlier and often eliminate the need for more expensive and invasive exploratory surgeries."
The UBC report details a number of key concerns with the accuracy of the findings from the survey, including:

-- Lack of sufficient statistical power to represent MRI/CT utilization on a national level.
-- Failure to capture a distribution of physician office and Independent Diagnostic Testing Facilities (IDTFs) that is indicative of the balance in many parts of the nation.
-- The low number of responses combined with the selected geographical areas from which surveys were completed prevents statistically significant regional and national conclusions from being made.
-- Focusing only on MRI and CT scans, which account for approximately 11 percent of all noninvasive diagnostic imagining (NDI) procedures in the U.S., would not capture the full range of imaging utilization rates for all imaging modalities.

More Industry Headlines