By Jared A. Favole
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. federal health regulators on Friday announced new rules that will result in trimmed payments for doctors who use expensive medical-imaging machines to screen patients for diseases such as cancer and heart problems.
The rules will cut by up to 38% the amount doctors will get when they use disease-screening equipment for procedures such as MRIs and CT scans. The rule applies to the roughly one million doctors who are paid under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, a program run by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS.
Analysts and observers had expected the move. Large manufacturers of such equipment, including General Electric Co. (GE) and Eastman Kodak Co. (EK), will likely be affected by the change.
CMS had proposed making changes that would result in lowered payments to physicians for using radiation oncology procedures, but decided against that. Congressman, patient groups and doctors had argued against cutting payments for radiology procedures, saying the radiology equipment is necessary to treat patients who already are shown to have cancer.
The new rules would increase, over four years, the assumed rate at which diagnostic machines are used, to 90% from 50%. A higher assumed rate results in lower payments.
-By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9207; jared.favole@dowjones.com