Breakthrough Reimbursement Proposals Percolate From FDA, Industry

As industry continues to nudge CMS to follow FDA's lead in making reforms that streamline the path to market for innovative new devices, the agencies are themselves floating solutions. All sides are thinking up strategies to rely on FDA's determination that a device meets certain "breakthrough" standards to trigger a streamlined path to data-conditioned reimbursement. But some in industry are concerned about an overemphasis on national, rather than local, coverage, and, in particular, the Medicare coverage-with-evidence-development process.