Hospital outpatient departments and wound care centers will soon be able to receive a higher reimbursement when treating Medicare
beneficiaries with the AmnioBand for chronic nonhealing wounds.
Beginning October 1, the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF) announces in a media release, its AmnioBand Allograft Placental Matrix will be placed in the high-tier reimbursement category for skin substitutes under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System.
Accordingto the release, CMS announced the reassignment of the AmnioBand “from the low cost skin substitute group to the high cost skin substitute group based on updated pricing information.” This announcement was made in Transmittal 3333, October 2015 Update of the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS), issued August 21, 2015, by CMS to its Medicare Administrative Contractors.
Kim Rounds, vice president of MTF Wound Care, states in the release that the higher Medicare reimbursement rate will better align with the costs hospital outpatient departments incur in treating complex wounds. “More importantly,” she adds, “this will enable MTF to further fulfill our mission to provide the gift of donated, high quality tissue to patients suffering from non-healing wounds.”
Such chronic non-healing wounds include diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, and pressure wounds, the release notes.
AmnioBand, developed by the MTF, is derived from dehydrated human placental membrane comprised of both the amnion and chorion layers, and is used as a scaffold for the treatment of chronic non-healing wounds, the release explains.
Various studies suggest that the essential components present within the AmnioBand support intrinsic wound healing functions, including providing a protective and physical barrier to infection, preventing bacteria infiltration, providing matrix proteins, and promoting tissue epithelization, the release notes.
[Source(s): Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, PR Newswire]
