On July 15 the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies approved $1 billion in added funds for the NIH in fiscal year 2011, which would raise the agency’s budget to more than $32 billion.
In response to the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) program, Medicare Durable Medical Equipment (DME) contractors CIGNA and NHIC have provided details on their prepayment review of claims for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Devices (E0601).
On Sept. 21-22, 2010, the Harvard Division of Sleep Medicine will convene a panel of experts in assessing sleepiness, genomics, proteomics and molecular biology from across the U.S. and Europe to discuss future research directions for identification of biomarkers of sleepiness.
Applications for AASM Accreditation of Non-Medicare Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Suppliers will be accepted beginning Sept. 1, 2010.
On Oct. 22–24, 2010, the AASM will host an Interpreting Sleep Studies course at the new AASM national office building in Darien, IL. This course, chaired by Robert Basner, MD, will cover a variety of topics related to the interpretation of sleep studies including polysomnography, portable monitoring and actigraphy.
Donald Berwick, MD, was sworn in last week as CMS administrator. Dr. Berwick, who served as president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and as a Harvard University professor, is best known for helping hospitals use standardized procedures to improve quality.
The incentive plan was outlined in the 2009 federal economic stimulus package to spur adoption of health information technology to boost medical care effectiveness and efficiency.
Next week the application for a new program offering AASM Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Accreditation for non-Medicare providers will be made available on the AASM website at https://www.aasmnet.org/DMEAccreditation.aspx.
Featuring state-of-the art meeting facilities, the national office of the AASM will serve as the site for five AASM Sleep Education Series courses this fall.
This rule includes both the standard annual update to the Medicare payment schedule and implementation of many provisions of the Affordable Care Act.