Medicare Cuts PET Reimbursement

Medicare issued a final rule on November 1, 2006 under the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS) that slashes reimbursement for multiple-scan heart imaging PET studies by 71 percent to $731.24, compared to $2,484.88 in 2006.
Under the HOPPS rule, the new rates for PET tumor imaging from skull base to midthigh will also drop by 26 percent to $855.43 compared to $1,150. Similarly, PET/CT imaging scans spanning from skull base to midthigh were cut by 24 percent, down to $950 from $1,250 in 2006.
Reimbursement for other molecular imaging scans, however, such as nuclear medicine bone and cardiac SPECT studies, remained unchanged or received a slight boost under the final rule.