The Heart Rhythm Society, along with two other cardiovascular specialty organizations, has submitted comments to Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, expressing concern about the potential impact of the CARE Act of 2007. (View the Heart Rhythm Society comments, PDF,68K)
The CARE Act seeks to "improve the quality and value of healthcare by increasing the safety and accuracy of medical imaging examinations and radiation therapy treatments, thereby reducing duplication of services and decreasing costs." The bill would establish standards for personnel who perform, plan, evaluate, or verify patient dose for medical imaging studies and radiation therapy procedures. The standards would not apply to physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
Under this bill the allied health professional would have to demonstrate compliance to the standards through successful completion of certification by a professional organization, licensure, completion of an examination, pertinent coursework or degree program, verified pertinent experience, or through other ways determined appropriate by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Standards may vary from discipline to discipline and shall represent expert consensus. It may also exempt individual providers from meeting certain standards based on their scope of practice. There is a mechanism for the recognition of individuals whose training or experience are determined to be equal to, or in excess of, those of a graduate of an accredited educational program in that specialty, or of an individual who is regularly eligible to take the licensure or certification examination for that discipline. The development of certification standards and subsequent adherence by allied health professionals would have to occur by the end of 48 months after enactment of the bill.
The Society is concerned that the bill, while utilizing terminology suggesting a focus on radiology, would also impact practices in the field of cardiology, including fluoroscopy.
Heart Rhythm Society advocates that the bill be modified to exempt personnel who perform imaging used in the guiding of procedures and who do so under direct supervision of physicians who have undergone radiation safety training. The Society believes that electrophysiologist supervision addresses any potential patient safety concerns and that additional training of allied health professionals is unnecessary and has the potential be burdensome in the time-frame specified by the bill.
View the Society's comments on the previous version of legislation.
