The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced yesterday a decision, effective immediately, to provide coverage for Doppler monitoring of cardiac output in certain settings. CMS has determined that the current evidence is adequate to revise its longstanding ultrasound diagnostic procedures National Coverage Determination and remove the past noncoverage of this diagnostic test in these settings.
“As we developed this decision,” said CMS Acting Administer Leslie V. Norwalk, “we used the best available medical evidence--in the form of randomized controlled clinical trials--to re-evaluate our position on this important noninvasive method of caring for patients in intensive care situations.”
CMS was asked to reconsider its longstanding NCD on ultrasound diagnostic procedures because the existing NCD predated the commercial availability of new medical devices, much of the validation data, and all of the peer-reviewed, randomized controlled clinical trial data.
