Anyone know if VA CCN covers BVNA?
-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
VA BVNA
Started by painisfear
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
BoSci auth department says yes. I’ve done several.
Do you get paid a Medicare rate for those VA BVNA cases? Or a little better or a little worse ?
No idea, sorry. I haven’t bothered to look at the individual rates. It’s lousy either way so I’m losing money proportional to anything else I could be doing.
Yep. It’s so sad that something like BVNA which is such a service to society, pays significantly worse than RFA which is so much easier and quicker to do.
How much does Medicare pay for BVNA?
Did a VA case yesterday. Brutal case, L4 and L5 easy, S1 was bad. High riding pelvis, I think approach angle was like 5 degrees oblique. Obviously went anterior and struggled to cross medially. Hard bone, heavy mallet. Male aged 55-60ish? Loose CArm that doesn’t do great laterals, moves a few inches even after you lock it.
$365 for 1st level
$167 for 2nd levels
$9891 for ASC
$13117 for hospital
Trans iliac time
This. I only go to OR 1x/month. I cap at 2 bvna/month. Patients get wait for me or get sent out to colleague at nearby practice
sucks for the HOPD docs.....that is nothing...
Does the regular pain management RFS cover BVNa? Or do you need a specific approval for BVNA?
Not sure what is RFS, but there is a separate and more annoying process to be approved for BVNA. And many insurance companies just don’t cover it.
Agree. The kit cost is typically 6k.
There is far more profit to be had doing RFA in HOPD vs BVNA.
You can get free trial leads if you do Intracept. BTW, it’s 2026 and the BSci trial system is a complete abomination before man and God. Did one three weeks ago, first BSci SCS in a few yrs. Leads steer amazingly well but those wires and all that BS the pt wears for those 4-5 days is ridiculous.
Yes...the leads steer well and they is really the only advantage...
No, AFAIK it requires a detailed request and isn't usually covered in the generic request for service
They do cover it. It paid less than $400. It got approved pretty quickly. Not sure how much they paid the surgery center.
Wouldn’t pro fees be same as Medicare like everything else they cover?
My VA pro fees are less than Medicare for a lot of codes
Yes, they are slightly less. I see multiple VACCN patients a day. It is fine since they don’t require PA for 95% of what we do and the Vets know they are coming for an injection and want to do it.
Same day injections are going to be less appealing next year with cuts to the 25 modifier
The VA might let us slip by for a full year. They were paying $36 for g2211 for awhile.
That's why we're going to see our patients, and then offer an any time walk in for their procedure the next day.
Agree. I will do something similar for peripheral stuff.
All spine will have to be scheduled.
