Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

ACC has a new national data registry.

Facilities must contact the American College of Cardiology's National Cardiovascular Data Registry before Jan. 1, 2006 to enroll in a new implantable cardioverter defibrillator data repository.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Oct. 27 it will require hospitals to transition their current ICD data reporting activities from the Quality Network Exchange ICD Abstract Tool (QNET) to the new ICD Registry.

CMS will work with the ACC to collect data nationwide to learn more about using ICDs to prevent sudden cardiac death among Medicare beneficiaries, notes agency administrator Mark McClellan. The ACC-NCDR's new ICD Registry "will become the new repository of information from more than 1,300 hospitals nationwide, effective April 1, 2006," CMS says.

CMS and the ACC hope that the ICD Registry will help answer important clinical questions about ICDs. "The Medicare aggregate data from the ICD Registry will be made available to the public to better inform patients and physicians on the most appropriate ICD therapy," CMS explains.

Find it online: For more information, go to https://www.accncdr.com.