tci Part B Insider - 2003 Issue 10

COVERAGE: National Coverage Policies Should Rule, Report Says

Confused by your carrier's local coverage policies? If the General Accounting Office gets its way, local policies would be abolished altogether, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would make all coverage decisions on a centralized, national basis. Variations in local coverage lead to unfair geographical biases, the GAO argues in "Medicare: Divided Authority for Policies on Coverage of Procedures and Devices Results in Inequities" (GAO-03-175). One example, deep brain scan for patients with Parkinson's disease, was covered in most western states except Montana, which didn't cover it, and New Mexico, which covered it on a case-by-case basis...

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