Augustine Medical to work with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Augustine Medical, Inc. has accepted an offer from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to assist in the design of research relating to Augustine Medical's Warm-Up® wound therapy. CMS recently outlined the research they would like to see for this product, stating, "We would be happy to work with the requestor in designing such a trial…."
"This is a great opportunity for Augustine Medical," said Paul Johnson, director of reimbursement. "We appreciate that CMS is willing to spend the time to help us with the design of our research." Johnson indicated great optimism that, once such research is completed, full reimbursement will follow.
This offer came as CMS denied Augustine Medical's request that CMS pay directly for Warm-Up therapy when the product is sold through providers of durable medical equipment. The agency stated that it did not feel that the research provided by the company sufficiently supported the request.
Simultaneously, however, CMS confirmed that providers may use Warm-Up therapy in all Prospective Payment System (PPS) settings. Moreover, the cost of Warm-Up therapy can be included in the provider's overhead where CMS is paying a prospective rate.
"The majority of chronic wounds are treated in the PPS environment, "said Tim Hensley, vice president, wound care. "This ruling opens the door to more than 3 million wounds in the United States."
Finally, CMS has assigned new unique Health Care Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes to Warm-Up therapy, which were effective January 1, 2002. The HCPCS codes will allow for simplified billing for use of this warmth-based wound care therapy by commercial payers and Medicaid.
Wound care is one of the biggest, most costly problems in healthcare today. Over six million Americans are affected with chronic wounds.1 And the incidence of wounds is expected to increase dramatically in the future due to the increase in the number of elderly, who are frequent sufferers, and the increasing incidence of diabetes and other health disorders associated with developing chronic wounds. The US diabetes rate may increase by 165 percent over the next 50 years.2
Warm-Up therapy is the only noncontact normothermic wound care system available today. The system consists of a sterile wound cover, an infrared warming card and a battery-operated controller that delivers regulated warmth to the wound. For more information on Warm-Up therapy, see www.warm-up.com.
Augustine Medical, Inc., a privately-held medical device company, develops products that provide innovative, practical solutions to common medical problems. In addition to Warm-Up therapy, the company pioneered the concept of perioperative temperature management using forced-air warming. Their system includes the Bair HuggerÒ warming system, the most commonly- used perioperative patient warming therapy in the world, and the RangerÒ blood/fluid warming system. For more information on Augustine Medical, see www.augustinemedical.com.
1 Medical Data International, 1997
2 "US diabetes rate may increase 165% by mid-century," Medscape.com, November 5, 2001