Aetna is the first national commercial insurer to cover MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound for treating essential tremor.
The movement disorder can cause uncontrollable shaking and affects some 10 million Americans. Focused ultrasound offers a one-time, incisionless outpatient procedure to help relieve symptoms, but coverage gaps have presented barriers to its use, experts noted Tuesday.
“This is a huge step in expanding patient access to non-Medicare patients,” Dee Kolanek, vice president of reimbursement for Insightec, said in a statement.
The Miami-based vendor announced back in July that Medicare had agreed to cover its MR-guided, focused-ultrasound treatment for tremors. In addition, 30 independent Blue Cross Blue Shield Association plans and nine private payers also provide coverage, Insightec said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved Insightec’s product back in 2016.
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.