Report: Medicare proposal would broaden coverage for Boston Scientific’s Watchman

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are reportedly considering broadening the coverage for Boston Scientific‘s (NYSE:BSX) Watchman anti-stroke device, according to an unidentified official with the federal health insurer. Leerink Partners analyst Danielle Antalffy, citing a Bloomberg report, wrote today that the CMS official “clarified that CMS is proposing to pay for Watchman for a subset of the patients who currently would be eligible for the device under the FDA-approved label,” or patients at high risk for stroke and bleeding and/or contraindicated to long-term warfarin use. “While this report is unconfirmed by either CMS or the company, we’d note that this would fall in line with takeaways from our physician conversations that CMS ultimately would not restrict coverage to only those patients with an absolute contraindication to warfarin,” Antalffy wrote. BSX shares took a hit earlier this month after CMS proposed to limit coverage for Watchman, a transcatheter implant designed to seal off the left atrial appendage to prevent the formation of blood clots that could cause stroke. The FDA approved Watchman in March. The federal health insurer proposed to limit coverage for Watchman to patients in approved clinical trials who can’t take warfarin, an anti-coagulant drug. CMS also proposed a registry study with a 2nd arm of patients taking novel oral anticoagulants. Barclays analyst Matt Taylor and Leerink Partners anal...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Tags: Cardiac Implants Cardiovascular Wall Street Beat Boston Scientific Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Reimbursement Source Type: news