Health Care Service Corporation, a commercial health insurer, issued a medical coverage policy for EndoGastric Solutions' Transoral Incisionless Fundoplication procedures using the EsophyX device.
Here are four notes:
1. The TIF procedure is designed to help control chronic gastroesophageal reflux disease. The FDA cleared the original EsophyX device in 2007.
2. HCSC's new medical coverage policy will make the TIF procedure with the EsophyX device available to its approximately 15 million members.
3. HCSC's network includes Blue Cross Blue Shield associations of Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
4. HCSC's coverage decision expands on the American Medical Association's decision earlier this year to create a new Category 1 Current Procedural Terminology code for EGD esophagogastric fundoplasty.