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The rules say that plans must pay for a medical service or item if regular Medicare would pay for it in this case.
You can find this rule at 42 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Section 422.101.
The rules say that Radionuclide imaging may be employed in the assessment of a variety of conditions
associated with primary coronary artery disease. Some of these conditions include:
1. Assessment of the functional and prognostic importance of angina, chest pain, or angina equivalent
symptoms.
2. Diagnostic evaluation of patients with chest pain and uninterpretable or equivocal ECG/EKG changes
occurring naturally or caused by drugs, bundle branch block, or left ventricular hypertrophy.
3. Risk assessment of re-evaluation of disease in patients who are asymptomatic or have stable symptoms,
with known atherosclerotic heart disease on catheterization or SPECT perfusion imaging, who have not had a
revascularization procedure within the past two years or greater than 2 years since last imaging study.
4. Detection of coronary artery disease in patients, without chest pain syndrome, with new-onset of
diagnosed heart failure or left ventricular systolic dysfunction.
5. Evaluation of ischemic versus non-ischemic cardiomyopathy when cardiac catheterization/coronary
angiography is not planned.
6. Evaluation of myocardial perfusion viability or function before and more than or equal to 5 years after
coronary artery bypass surgery or greater than or equal to 2 years after percutaneous perfusion procedures,
unless new clinical signs or symptoms necessitate reevaluation.
7. Quantification and surveillance of myocardial infarction and prognostication in patient with infarction.
8. Preoperative assessment for non-cardiac surgery, when used to determine risk for surgery or
perioperative management in:
o Patients with minor or intermediate clinical risk predictors and poor functional capacity.
o Patients with intermediate or high likelihood of coronary heart disease, or patients with poor functional
capacity undergoing high risk non-cardiac surgery.
The ACC/AHA 2014 Guidelines on Perioperative Cardiovascular Evaluation and Care for Non-Cardiac
Surgery1; provides the following information regarding categorization of surgical risk. They include:
o high risk/intermediate risk surgery: aortic and peripheral vascular surgery; intraperitoneal and
intrathoracic surgery, carotid endarterectomy, head and neck surgery, orthopedic surgery and prostate surgery;
o low risk surgery: endoscopic procedure, superficial surgery, cataract surgery, breast surgery,
ambulatory surgery;
o The Guidelines establish poor functional capacity as less than 4 METS;
o Utilization of these tests is based on the presence of multiple risk factors, the level of functional
capacity, the risk of surgery proposed, and the likelihood that the results of the cardiac testing would change
the management.
9. Evaluation of ventricular function in patients with non-ischemic myocardial disease.
10. Evaluation of patients in whom an accurate measure of the ejection fraction is needed to make a
determination of whether to implant a defibrillator or biventricular pacemaker.
11. Evaluation of patient receiving chemotherapeutic drugs which are potentially cardiotoxic (e.g.,
Adriamycin, Herceptin).
Limitations
1. Myocardial perfusion studies performed based on the presence of risk factors in the absence of cardiac
symptoms, cardiac abnormalities on physical examination, or abnormalities on cardiac testing (e.g.,
electrocardiographic tests, echocardiography, treadmill stress testing, etc.) will be considered screening and
denied as not covered by Medicare.
You can find this rule in the Local Coverage Determination (LCD): Cardiovascular Nuclear Medicine
(L35083) effective October 17, 2019.
If you want to read these Medicare rules, you can go to this website www.medicareappeal.com.
The Plan contract says that the Plan covers items and services in accordance with Medicare rules.