CMS Decides Not to Make National CTA Policy
There will be no national policy on using cardiac computed tomography angiography (CTA) for coronary artery disease, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced.
Instead, local Medicare contractors can issue local coverage determinations (LCDs) regarding the use of cardiac CTA for providers in their geographic areas. Current local policy LCD X-45C can be found on the Highmark Medicare Services website.
Cardiac CTA is a general phrase used to describe noninvasive imaging of the coronary arteries with various types of computed tomography (CT) machines, such as multislice CT, multidetector CT, and dual source CT.
The use of CTA has increased over the years as the technology has advanced and availability and number of machines has increased. Proponents have claimed that the use of cardiac CTA will lead to better health outcomes and a reduction in cardiac catheterization, the current standard for diagnosis of coronary artery disease. CMS is concerned that there is a lack of clinical evidence to demonstrating improved patient health outcomes with CTA.
CMS had considered restricting coverage of cardiac CTA to clinical studies.
Visit the CMS website for more information, including the full decision memo and a tracking sheet of the decision process.
Last Updated: 8/6/2008