Microwave Ablation for Outpatient Procedures

In Interventional Radiology, you strive to diagnose and treat various diseases using minimally invasive procedures.  By providing alternatives to open surgery, as an Interventional Radiologist, you reduce risk, pain and recovery time for patients. However, you need the best tools for the many outpatient procedures you perform:

• Soft tissue ablation procedures
• Organ-directed therapies
• Vascular work
• Pain management
• Drainage catheters
• Port and PICC Line Placement

 

Limitations of RF Ablation

For tumor ablation procedures, many clinicians choose thermal RF ablation as a minimally invasive treatment option in non-operative patients, and debulking of diseased tissue. However, RF ablation is fundamentally limited by its heating mechanism.

Tissue temperatures during electrical conduction must be kept below 100 °C to prevent charring and a subsequent rise in electrical impedance which limits growth of the ablation zone. Also, low frequency radiofrequency (RF) ablation may be effective for small and more peripheral tumors, but the risk of treatment failure is higher for larger or centrally located tumors.

RF ablation is also limited by an inability to heat charred or desiccated tissue and to overcome the heat sink effect of local blood flow.

Benefits of Microwave Ablation

In contrast, Microwave Ablation platforms provide safe, effective, economical and user-friendly therapeutic energy.  The MedWaves microwave ablation systems do NOT require irrigation, cooling and return pads like the other products in the market.

• The microwave generator-controller includes important safety features such as precise temperature and power controls for predictable coagulation-ablation effects.
• Regular-predictable ablation-zone size and shape; unaffected by varying tissue electrical resistance and minimally affected by cooling blood flow.
• No return pads to cause extra burns.
• Minimum to no pain and no nerve-muscular reaction during energy application (no current flow).

Microwave Ablation makes Business Sense Today and in the Future

The U.S. healthcare industry is in the midst of a fundamental transformation, stemming largely from rising costs and inconsistent quality of care. Healthcare reform laws and economic pressures are causing a shift in focus from volume-based to value-based care.

Payers and providers continue to explore innovations that improve clinical outcomes and reduce costs, and Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is one such innovation.

Minimally invasive procedures offer patients reduced pain and scarring, shorter hospitalization, and a quicker return to activities of daily living. Studies show that MIS is frequently associated with reduced rates of complications, mortality, and morbidity. The data also suggest that MIS is associated with cost benefits, likely due to reduced length of stay (LOS) and fewer complications. The potential net result of replacing open procedures with MIS is that both the payer and the provider could see improved outcomes and a more favorable cost structure.

In the United States, payers generally reimburse the provider based on the Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Groups (MS-DRG) system. The MS-DRG system provides a single reimbursement for an entire inpatient hospitalization, accounting for diagnosis and procedures performed during the hospital stay. MS-DRGs provide higher reimbursement for procedures with complications and/or comorbidities, and major complications and/or comorbidities. Patients with significant comorbidities prior to the surgery or who experience complications during or after the surgery (prior to discharge) are assigned a complex DRG (cDRG).

Procedures assigned to a cDRG are reimbursed at a higher rate on average than those assigned to the corresponding noncomplex, or base, DRG. The implications of DRG assignment for the payer are important because cDRGs typically result in a substantially increased expense.

Minimally invasive surgery is associated with improved clinical outcomes and reduced costs. Studies show that procedures performed via a minimally invasive surgery (MIS) approach, such as microwave ablation, would be associated with fewer complex Diagnosis Related Group (cDRG) assignments and subsequently result in reimbursement savings.