MAUI, HAWAII — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decision to reimburse for total body photography as a screening tool for early melanoma in high-risk patients is good and bad news, according to Dr. Allan C. Halpern, chief of the dermatology service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York.
The good news is that reimbursement for this clinically important technique will become far more widely available. And the bad news?
“Unfortunately, based on the Relative Value Units involved, it's going to be reimbursed at about $70-$80. Until now, most third-party payers haven't covered total body photography, but of the one-third to one-half who have, they've paid $125-$350. I'm afraid that's going to come down in response to the CMS,” he predicted at the annual Hawaii Dermatology Seminar sponsored by Skin Disease Education Foundation.
With broader reimbursement, patient compliance with visits for follow-up images may drop.
“Patients now pay out of pocket for total body photography, so compliance with follow-up visits is pretty high. My guess is that with wider reimbursement and greater use, compliance may not be as high. So it's important not to raise your threshold for excision on the first visit because you expect to see the patient again with baseline photos for comparison,” the dermatologist cautioned.
SDEF and this news organization are wholly owned subsidiaries of Elsevier.