Half of Those Who Could Benefit From Implanted Defibrillators Wouldn't Qualify Under Medicare, Study Shows; Cost Savings Balanced Against Saving Lives of Heart Failure Patients.

(From AScribe)

NEW ORLEANS -- In a vivid illustration of the tradeoffs that society increasingly faces in this age of costly new medical technology, new research examines the potential impact of Medicare's decision to cover lifesaving implanted devices only for certain heart patients, and not for others.

The analysis shows that more than half of the patients who would be good candidates to receive implanted cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) according to criteria from the MADIT II clinical trial would not qualify to be reimbursed for them under Medicare's current guidelines.

And some of them will die from sudden cardiac death that could probably have been prevented by an ICD, a pacemaker-like implanted device that monitors heart rhythm and shocks the heart back into a normal pace when an …