ISASS Statement on Minimally Invasive SI Joint Fusion Coverage

The International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgeons released a statement supporting the CPT Editorial Panel's statements about covering minimally invasive sacroiliac joint fusion procedures.

In a survey conducted last year, ISASS and the Society of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgeons found that 90 percent of all SI joint fusions were performed with a minimally invasive approach. The procedure was recently moved to a CPT category III code.

According to the report, the CPT Editorial Panel states that "the assignment of a CPT Category III code to a service does not indicate that it is experimental or of limited utility, but only that the service or technology is new and is being tracked for data collection."

ISASS encourages payers to make coverage decisions based on the physician's clinical decisions and medical necessity presented by the patient.