Eyeworld Daily News

3 EW SHOW DAILY ASCRS•ASOA Symposium & Congress, San Diego 2015 investment of around $2 billion. There is also a high drug failure rate to consider. "The consequences are huge, obviously," Dr. De La Peña said. Other presenters in the session were Josef Bille, PhD, Heidelberg, Germany, on the topic of manufac- turing a custom IOL using the fem- tosecond laser; Jeffrey Goldberg, MD, PhD, San Diego, on the topic of cell therapies from the lab to the clinic; John Vukich, MD, Madison, Wis., who was presenting on behalf of Kevin Waltz, MD, Indianapolis, on the topic of extended depth of focus IOLs; and Robert Lingua, MD, Irvine, Calif., on the topic of the evolution of the augmented Sinskey extirpation procedure for nystag- mus. EW Editors' note: Dr. Kinoshita has fi- nancial interests with Abbott Medical Optics (Abbott Park, Ill.), Alcon (Fort Worth, Texas), Hoya (Tokyo), JCR Pharmaceuticals (Tokyo), Otsuka Pharmaceutical (Tokyo), Pfizer (New York), Santen (Osaka, Japan), and Senju (Osaka, Japan). also be minimally invasive. Human corneal endothelial cells are difficult to culture, so the key is to establish a cultivation protocol for clinical application, he said. Dr. Kinoshita believes there may be a clinical trial in a couple of years, but a higher quality of the cultivated endothelial cells is still necessary before that happens. There is also the possibility of an eye drop treatment in early stage of disease that could recover corneal endothelial function by stimulat- ing a patient's CEC proliferation by ROCK inhibitory eye drops. Dr. Kinoshita said that future goals for this potential treatment are to elu- cidate clinical indication, optimize ROCK inhibitors for a clinical trial, and investigate anti-apoptotic action for Fuchs' dystrophy. We may be able to add addition- al treatments such as cell injection of cultivated corneal endothelial cells or ROCK inhibitor eye drops sometime in the future of corneal endothelial therapy, Dr. Kinoshita concluded. William De La Peña, MD, Los Angeles, also presented in the ses- sion and discussed the Athena Proj- ect, which will ultimately build a small human. This human would be about the size of an iPad and inside that human would be an indepen- dent organ unit, he said. The 4 main organs would fit in the size of an iPhone. The surrogate interconnect- ed human organs (the liver, heart, lung, and kidneys) would provide a holistic dynamic system to mimic the human physiological environ- ment, Dr. De La Peña said. The Athena Project will allow for a greater chance of clinical success, saving billions and provid- ing for more cures, he said. When we talk about the limitation of our drug screening process in the U.S., he said, from the time of discovery to the time of cure, we're looking at about 15 years, and there is an Innovators continued from page 1 Visit us in booth # 3060 Natural Tear Drops www.CrocTears.com 1 (855) 880-9538 amount of the Part B deductible for new enrollees beginning in 2020, and income-related premiums for Medicare Part B and D under current law are readjusted. Another key provision in the legislation was the rescinding of the CMS finalized policy to transition all 10- and 90-day global codes to 0-day codes. The postoperative visits would have been eliminated from the 10-day codes in 2017 and the 90-day codes in 2018. "It would have affected more than 4,200 codes, and CMS had not developed a methodology to make the transi- tion," Ms. McCann said. You should always be suspect when CMS wants to make changes like this, she said. "In ophthalmology, we have the highest practice expenses of any spe- cialty." These practice expenses are calculated per hour, and there is no way that they'd be able to account for that and the supplies and other procedures that take place, like re- moving sutures, that don't have CPT codes, according to Ms. McCann. CMS had already stated it would develop new postoperative surgical codes that would have a lower value and lower reimbursement. It would have also limited the number. Ms. McGlone discussed the quality programs: the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), EHR, and the Value-Based Payment Modifier (VBPM). She went into detail on the new Merit-Based In- centive Payment System (MIPS) and talked about recent information on Meaningful Use. There are some proposed rule changes to Meaningful Use that have come out recently. The first was relating to the flexibility rule, where CMS released a proposed flexibility rule that contains major changes to both Stage 1 and Stage 2 Meaningful Use. For 2015 only, CMS proposed to allow all EPs, regardless of their prior participation in Meaningful Use, to attest to an EHR reporting period of any calendar year quarter. For 2015 and 2016, new participants in an EHR reporting program can attest to any continuous 90-day reporting period. The second big change, Ms. McGlone said, was to patient en- gagement measures. CMS proposed SGR continued from page 1 to change the threshold from the Stage 2 objective for the Patient Electronic Access measure that requires patients to view, download, or transmit their health information from 5% to equal or greater than 1 patient. CMS also proposed to change the Stage 2 Secure Electronic Access measure from being a per- centage-based measure to a yes/no measure stating "functionality fully enabled." Patient electronic access and secure electronic messaging were 2 issues that our members had the most trouble with, Ms. McGlone said. Additionally, CMS is proposing to eliminate the distinction between menu and core measures and require all eligible professionals to report on 9 objectives and 1 consolidated public health reporting objective for both Stage 1 and Stage 2 of Meaningful Use. EW Editors' note: Ms. McCann and Ms. McGlone have no financial interests related to their presentations. Ms. McCann gives attendees an update on legislative and regulatory issues, including the recent repeal of the SGR. Dr. De La Peña discusses the Athena Project.

• Cover