Emergency radiology vendor Avicenna.AI scores Medicare coverage for stroke CT assistant
Avicenna.AI recently scored Medicare coverage for its artificial intelligence-powered platform to help triage stroke patients, the company announced Tuesday.
The Paris, France-based firm joins a growing list of vendors to earn these new technology add-on payments from the feds. Its CINA Head solution—cleared by the U.S. FDA over the summer—helps radiologists to detect intracranial hemorrhages and large vessel occlusions in CT angiogram images.
Radiologist and co-founder Peter Chang, MD, said the product is the first deep learning tool to receive such a payment from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Providers are now eligible for reimbursement of up to $1,040 for using the platform, he added.
“CMS only grants NTAP designation to promote the adoption of new technology that provides substantial clinical improvement over standard of care,” Chang—also co-director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostic Medicine at the University of California, Irvine—said in a statement. “This will help accelerate the innovation and adoption of deep learning technology by aligning the incentives of both software developers and clinical providers.”
CINA Head utilizes deep- and machine-learning technology to pinpoint within 20 seconds and prioritize hemorrhaging inside of the skull or a clot blocking the flow of blood to the brain. Avicenna.AI joins others such as Viz.ai and RapidAI that have also recently earned add-on payments from CMS for their stroke solutions.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.