I heard that starting in 2001 HCFA has approved reimbursement for doing Access Blood Flow Measurements. Does anyone know what that reimbursement rate might be ?
I am trying to convince my Medical Director to buy some equipment to do these measurements and this information would be helpful in that effort.

Well, HCFA let us down...
The reimbursement for access flow measurement, that we were all hoping for, was denied. Instead, they dumped the cost of doing this procedure ( estimated to be approximately $28.00 /reading)into the composite rate.
Now less units will be likely to do this measurement as part of their access surveillance program. That means early intervention for access complications will be reduced and more patient's accesses will fail. Access related hospitalizations and patient morbidity and mortality related to access complications will increase.
I am so disappointed about this unfortunate turn of events. Did those HCFA people read the DOQI Vascular Access Guidelines ?
One wonders.

Yes I agree. This is very sad. HCFA is grabbing at pennies and losing big dollars. We market a vascular access database designed to organized vascular access intervention data and report outcomes based on the DOQI guidelines. The program has been successful and our userbase is growing, but until there is a financial incentive to monitor, report, and IMPROVE vascular access outcomes, behavior will not change.

Thank you for your update, although I wish the news was better!

I agree that HCFA should reimburse for vascular access surveillance. Until this happens, there is a CPT code #90940 (Hemodialysis access flow study to determine blood flow in grafts and arteriovenous fistulae by indicator dilution method, hook-up, measurement, and disconnection)effective January 1, 2001. Although HCFA does not currently reimburse this code, some private insurance carriers will. It is possible to submit under this code for access flow measurements performed on patients with private insurance coverage. Even though privately covered patients are a minority of dialysis patients, this reimbursemnt could add up to a substantial amount of money.

Write to HCFA and tell them that access flow measurements are a necessity and a cost saver. For more information visit: http://www.transonic.com/reimbursement.html

[This message has been edited by Jen Burlingame (edited 03-27-2001).]