Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services January 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In this final notice we respond to public comments on our September 30, 2005 notice with comment period and announce our decision concerning an application submitted by Advanced Medical Optics (AMO) to adjust the Medicare payment amounts for certain intraocular lenses (IOLs) on the basis that they are new technology intraocular lenses (NTIOLs). This is the third of three statutorily required Federal Register documents. On May 27, 2005, we published a notice in the Federal Register entitled ``Medicare Program; Calendar Year 2005 Review of the Appropriateness of Payment Amounts for New Technology Intraocular Lenses (NTIOLs) Furnished by Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs)'' (70 FR 30731) that solicited interested parties to submit requests for review of the appropriateness of the payment amount for an IOL furnished by an ambulatory surgical center. On September 30, 2005, we published a notice with comment period entitled ``Medicare Program; Calendar Year 2005 Review of the Appropriateness of Payment Amounts for New Technology Intraocular Lenses (NTIOLs) Furnished by Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs)'' (70 FR 57297) acknowledging timely receipt of one application. In this final notice, we announce our decision to approve the NTIOL application submitted by Advanced Medical Optics (AMO) for Tecnis[supreg] (model numbers Z9000, Z9001, and Z9003).

This notice announces a Town Hall meeting on our methodology for establishing practice expense (PE) values for services paid under the physician fee schedule (PFS). The purpose of this meeting is to: (1) Clarify our proposed revisions to the PE methodology contained in the PFS calendar year (CY) 2006 proposed rule; and (2) receive comments and opinions from individuals of the medical community regarding ideas for the CY 2007 PFS proposed rule. This meeting is open to the public, but attendance is limited to space available.