CMS eases approval of medical devices

Modern Healthcare: The CMS has tweaked one of its coverage processes to ease access to medical devices.

There are two Medicare coverage types, one that allows national coverage and one that allows Medicare contractors to pay for services or items on a local or regional basis. The agency has modified the latter.

"It's no secret that the government often moves more slowly than private industry—some of our payment policies haven't been updated in decades," CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement. "This means that patients may experience unnecessary gaps between FDA approval of a technology and Medicare paying for the technology."

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