High-Tech Surgeries Popping up in Medicare Set-Asides

As high-tech surgical methods such as robotics and computer-assisted navigation are being used more frequently in operating rooms, they’re also starting to show up in Medicare set-asides, where they have the potential to add substantial cost. Erin O’Neill, an attorney at Medval, a provider of Medicare secondary payer compliance services, made note of the surgical technology in a blog post this week. O’Neill gave the example of a Medicare set-aside approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that included a $108,000 lumbar fusion procedure — a cost much...