SNMMI, Alzheimer’s Association ramp up amyloid talks with CMS

A March 22 teleconference between the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), Alzheimer's Association and other stakeholders discussed new appropriate use recommendations concerning amyloid imaging for the evaluation of Alzheimer's disease to be reviewed by CMS.

The SNMMI and Alzheimer's Association will hold a meeting with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) April 17 as a follow-up to a statement of appropriate use criteria (AUC) for amyloid imaging of Alzheimer’s disease. The statement was made earlier this year as a part of a task force between the Alzheimer’s Association and SNMMI to provide evidence-based recommendations for amyloid imaging.

CMS currently does not cover amyloid imaging for the evaluation of Alzheimer’s disease despite the PET imaging agent Amyvid's recent commercial availability. Following January's meeting of the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC), the task force now seeks to engage CMS to review amyloid imaging recommendations.

“We will express at that time our concern about how the MEDCAC meeting went back in January,” said Frederic H. Fahey, DSc, president of SNMMI. Fahey stated that SNMMI “will recommend coverage for the three indications specified by the AUC,” which were published in the January Alzheimer's & Dementia and also in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

The AUC asserts that amyloid imaging is appropriate for patients with prolonged and worsening confusion and memory problems who have displayed cognitive impairments in standard evaluation of cognition and memory, patients with unusual clinical cases, and those with progressive dementia and particular cases of early onset Alzheimer’s. 

During the teleconference, dementia experts noted that a statement was being devised to provide comment supporting further MEDCAC review of amyloid imaging for the evaluation of Alzheimer's disease.

“It will speak on behalf of dementia experts and more to the point perhaps the patients of families that those experts end up serving,” said Michael Devous, PhD, director of neuroimaging for the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.