Medicare Nixes "Virtual Colonoscopy"

[facetguy]

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Is this the end of virtual colonoscopy for awhile?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/12/eveningnews/main5010074.shtml

Do any insurance carriers pay for these now?

 

[colbgw02]

Meh. I'm not so sure this isn't a good thing. These studies are gigantic and take forever to read. They also pay about as much as a routine abdomen and pelvis CT. I can read about 3 of those in the time it takes to go through a VC. Apart from that, they cause storage problems on the PACS and you have to spend money to get certified with relatively little concern.

 

[Dimoak]

Yeah, you can hardly blame insurance; the technology just isn't quite there yet. Better compression would prevent the files from taking up so much space on PACS, they're pretty expensive to have read, imaging isn't as detailed, and no biopsy option, so if a pathology was discovered, the insurer would still have to pay for another scope.