Medicare was the primary payer for 90 percent of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) hospitalizations over a recent three-year period, according to a March 19 report in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions. With that in mind, the recent proposal to cut $473 billion from the CMS budget over the next decade could limit access to the increasingly popular procedure, researchers noted.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma, MPH, offered some hints at the agency’s priorities in its annual rulemaking for Medicare this year, suggesting a slew of new policies on price transparency, interoperability and physician self-referral laws.

Using realistic 3D-printed models can help train medical students on the subject of interventional radiology vascular access, according to new research presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) annual meeting in Los Angeles.

In a proposed rule, CMS would loosen requirements for states with Medicaid managed care programs on analyzing and monitoring access to care, a move the agency said would provide additional relief on “burdensome” regulations finalized by the prior administration.

A group of New England researchers analyzed patient narratives, finding clinical codes and communication breakdown as the most common reasons for complaints, with no significant difference between multifactorial and single-coded complaints.

Downers Grove, Illinois-based Advocate Health Care and Milwaukee’s Aurora Health Care have gotten the final approval needed to close their merger, which will create the 10th largest nonprofit, integrated health system in the country.

Barely a tenth of U.S. physicians practice in rural locations, but up to 60 million patients live in those areas.

Early data suggest image-guided injections of immunotherapy could be used to treat advanced-stage liver tumors, according to a study presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s annual meeting in Los Angeles.