ACR responds to Congressional query on AI reimbursement

American College of Radiology (ACR) CEO William Thorwarth Jr., MD, issued a nine-page letter to Congress recommending how to solve the reimbursement problem for AI in healthcare and ensure clinical AI is of value to patients and health systems. Thorwarth's response is just one prompted by a March 20 request from the Bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI), led by U.S. Rep. Ami Bera, MD, (D-CA). Among the key questions posed by Bera is, "What measures can be employed to guarantee proper reimbursement and coverage for AI technologies in healthcare?" Among other healthcare specialties, radiology has been a particularly active area for AI. As of May 6, the ACR estimated that there are approximately 250 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized radiology-specific AI products intended for use in a variety of applications that use diagnostic imaging data, Thorwarth's letter noted for Congress. William Thorwarth Jr., MD. Despite the wide availability of AI software in radiology, however, "licensing costs, support staffing, and the relative lack of reimbursement are barriers to acquisition, appropriate governance, and high-quality medical uses of AI," Thorwarth stated. According to Thorwarth, "coding systems do not have pathways for creating procedure codes for services that are already performed by physicians -- consequently, AI that perform tasks physicians are often unable to perform during routine workflows, such as advanced quantitative functions...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Artificial Intelligence Regulatory Administration Source Type: news