CMS In Brief

More coverage with evidence development?: Coverage with evidence development, in which Medicare covers services or devices only through clinical trials or data registries, has been "indeed successful," said Barry Straube, director and chief clinical officer of CMS' Office of Clinical Standards and Quality, at the AdvaMed 2009 conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 13. The coverage approach has been most successful in PET scanning, where "we've found we're getting evidence that PET scanning is reasonable and necessary for a number of cancers, and we've added full coverage in those areas," Straube said. "I think this is something we haven't fully utilized and will be utilizing more.