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Controversies in Ablation

Live meeting in Berlin, Germany during EUROPACE 09

This activity is sponsored by
St. Jude Medical.

CLINICAL EVENTS CALENDAR

Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 23:00
ACC.10 and i2 Summit 2010
http://www.acc.org
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - 23:00
SCAI 33rd Annual Scientific Sessions
http://www.scai.org
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 23:00
Heart Rhythm: 31st Annual Scientific Sessions
http://www.hrsonline.org
Monday, May 31, 2010 - 23:00
CEPIA Introduction to Cardiac Electrophysiology
http://www.cepia.com.au

Current Issue

Features
Top Ten List: Things Electrophysiologists and Cardiologists Can Do to Increase Profitability
There is a lot of low-hanging fruit in most cardiology and electrophysiology practices. Following are the top ten areas in which you can increase the profitability of your practice.

#10: Be Aware of Your Post-Op Billing Opportunities
Reimbursement for pacemaker and defibrillator surgeries includes routine surgical recovery services provided in the 90-day post-operative period. This is most commonly limited to discharge following the procedure and an incision site check shortly after discharge.

However, Medicare policy specifies that “Treatment for the underlying condition or an added course of treatment which is not part of normal recovery from surgery” and “Visits unrelated to the diagnosis for which the surgical procedure is performed” are separately reimbursable. Medicare requires that we attach the 24 modifier to these evaluation and management services to confirm that they are not routine post-operative care.

READ MORE

DEPARTMENTS

Spotlight Interview: Hartford Hospital

Email Discussion Group: March 2010

Industry News and Products

FEATURES

Click Here to submit your own question for consideration!

Online Exclusive

EP Year in Review: 2009

J. David Burkhardt, MD, FACC and Andrea Natale, MD, FACC, FHRS, Executive Medical Director
Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute
Austin, Texas

In this special feature, J. David Burkhardt, MD, FACC and Andrea Natale, MD, FACC, FHRS discuss electrophysiology advancements from the past year.

The year 2009 has yielded some interesting developments in the field of cardiac electrophysiology. Many of the advances reported in the last decade in atrial fibrillation have focused on ablative therapy.

Pediatric EP Blog
George F. Van Hare, MD
Child Neurologists and Pediatric Electrophysiologists
EP Nursing Blog
Barbara Thomas, RN
Do Atrial Fibrillation Education Centers Improve Patient Outcomes?
Perspectives in EP
Todd J. Cohen, MD
How will the Obama administration’s health care initiative affect EP?
Atrial Fibrillation Blog
Nassir F. Marrouche, MD
The Upcoming Western Atrial Fibrillation Symposium

Feature

Therapeutic Hypothermia Following Cardiac Arrest

Author: Deborah Walsh, MS, RN and Dana P. Edelson, MD, MS
Emergency Resuscitation Center, University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois

More information is becoming available about therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for patients following a cardiac arrest. Read more about this innovative treatment here.

Since the advent of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation, few discoveries have changed patient outcomes in the way that induction of therapeutic hypothermia for initial survivors has.

History

Induction of TH following cardiac arrest has many historic roots, but is probably most attributed to Dr. Peter Safar, who in the 1960s argued that the “ABC’s” of resuscitation should include an “H” for application of TH.1-3 However, because of side effects from prolonged moderate hypothermia used at that time and the deficiency in knowledge about optimal TH duration and temperatures, it was abandoned until the 1980s, when animal studies were resumed.2-5 The results from these studies provided the impetus to continue studies in humans.6-10 However, it wasn’t until 2002, when two randomized clinical trials of TH were published side by side in the New England Journal of Medicine, that TH hit the mainstream.11,12