Medicare now covers a supervised exercise therapy for peripheral artery disease (PAD), according to CMS, a decision that will likely result in other insurers following this example.

Romeo Pavlic, MD, a cardiologist from Spokane, Washington, agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging he overbilled Medicare and Medicaid patients, the Spokesman-Review reports.

The approval of two new Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes acknowledges echocardiographic myocardial strain imaging and myocardial contrast perfusion echocardiography as emerging technologies, often a necessary step before a code is promoted to payable status.

A health system in Philadelphia agreed to pay nearly $1 million to resolve allegations that a cardiologist improperly billed Medicare for unnecessary services, Philadelphia Business Journal reports.

A year after Medicare issued comparative billing reports detailing transthoracic echocardiography usage, the physicians who received the reports still may have cause for concern.

Months after the U.S. FDA approved a device with the potential to close the source of many atrial fibrillation-related strokes, hospitals, cardiologists and patients find themselves in a holding pattern increasingly common for newly emerging therapies: They are waiting for the CMS to issue a national coverage determination for LAA occlusion.

Harold Persaud, MD, a cardiologist from Ohio, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Dec. 18 for overbilling Medicare and private insurance companies by $29 million between 2006 and 2012. The Department of Justice announced the sentence on Dec. 18.

A jury in Ohio convicted cardiologist Harold Persaud of performing unnecessary tests and procedures and overbilling Medicare and private insurers by $7.2 million.