The ACC recently joined a coalition of a dozen health care provider organizations to send a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in support of adding unique device identifiers (UDIs) to Medicare claims forms. A recent report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) concluded that the failure and recall of seven cardiac implants cost CMS $1.5 billion to provide follow-up care to those affected and another $140 million in out-of-pocket expenses to Medicare beneficiaries. The report ultimately recommended adding device identifiers that indicate the brand and model used to address the gap in claims data to detect device failures.

In a response from CMS, the agency stated it planned to investigate the potential burden to health care providers with the addition of the device identifiers to claims. Within the sign-on letter, the coalition writes that the associated benefits in safety and value would largely outweigh any additional effort required.

The letter states, “As organizations that include or represent healthcare providers, such as physicians that implant these products, doctors’ offices and hospitals, we support the addition of device identifiers in claims data. We do not believe this would introduce an undue burden. We urge CMS to support OIG’s—and many others’—recommendation to add device identifiers to claims to enable hospitals and clinicians to obtain better data on product performance to improve safety and reduce costs for our patients.” Read the full letter.

Keywords: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S., Health Expenditures, Medicaid, Medicare, United States Dept. of Health and Human Services, Physicians, Equipment Failure

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