Hot Off the Press

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  New CMS Audits Aim to Lessen Burden on Compliant Providers The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid service ( CMS) has updated its Medicare fraud and improper payment audit process to target providers and suppliers who frequently demonstrate high medical billing error rates. The new Targeted Probe and Educ...
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  Ottobock, EQT Partnership Confirmed The long-term partnership between Otto Bock HealthCare GmbH (aka Ottobock) and Swedish private equity firm EQT, Stockholm, Sweden, that was announced on June 24 will move forward as all contingent regulatory requirements involved in the closing ha...
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  G&W Heel Lift Celebrates Half-century of Service G&W Heel Lift, a family-owned business in Cuba, Missouri, has marked 50 years of service supplying custom-made heel lifts and foot lifts to healthcare professionals and their patients. The company's cork heel lift is known for its materials, s...
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  Canadian Orthotists Launch Sleep Care Services A group of orthotists in Quebec, Canada, is expanding to include the provision of services in sleep care. Équilibre, a network of 70 orthotic clinics and points of service in Quebec, and part of orthopedics company Ergoresearch, Montreal, C...
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  Researchers Eye Expanding Prosthetic Hand Capabilities Though prostheses have advanced to complex interfaces of devices and biological systems, researchers are not satisfied with that progress. A research collaboration at Arizona State University (ASU), Mayo Clinic, Florida International University, a...
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  Judge Halts ALJ Backlog Deadline The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has found merit in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assertion that it would be nearly impossible for the department to clear the backlog of outstanding Administra...
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  Ponseti Method Superior to Surgery for Clubfoot Though treatment of idiopathic clubfoot has shifted from extensive surgical release to conservative Ponseti method, randomized prospective trials to compare both methods are lacking. Researchers, therefore, conducted a study to compare the long-te...
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  Steeper Group Opens New Headquarters Steeper Group, Leeds, England, has announced the opening of its new headquarters in Leeds. Construction of the state-of-the-art facility will accommodate Steeper's Leeds-based manufacturing and office operations. Housing the workforce in one locat...
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  Team Össur’s Blades Featured in Kennedy Center Exhibit The Cheetah prosthetic running blade, developed by Össur, Reykjavik, Iceland, is featured in an exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC through August 30. The exhibit, "Artful Innovation: Inclusive De...
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  AOPA Honors Award Winners The American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association (AOPA) will honor recipients for their advocacy and work in O&P during the AOPA World Congress in Las Vegas, September 7-9. Recipients of the Ralph R. (Ronney) Snell Legislative Advocacy award...
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  Zahedi Named AOPA Lifetime Achievement Award Winner The American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association (AOPA) has honored Saeed Zahedi, OBE, FREng, BSc, PhD, FIMechE, CEng, RDI, with its 2017 Lifetime Achievement award. Zahedi Zahedi, a biomedical engineer and innovator, is currently the tech...
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  New Coding Redetermination Project for Custom Diabetic Inserts A-5513 The Pricing, Data Analysis and Coding (PDAC) contractor announced that based on a previously published coding clarification , it was initiating a coding redetermination project for diabetic inserts described by Healthcare Common Procedure Coding S...
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  UF Expands Rehabilitation Robotics Team Daniel Ferris, PhD, has joined the faculty of the University of Florida (UF) Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. Ferris led the Human Neuromechanics Laboratory at the University of Michigan, where he spent 16 years. His research includes impr...
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  DME MACs Clarify Requirements for A-5513 The Durable Medical Equipment Medicare Administrative Contractors (DME MACs) issued a joint publication on July 13 that addressed the proper use of diabetic shoe insert Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) code A-5513 (for diabetics o...