News Briefs: Week of Aug. 17-21

This roundup includes the following news briefs:

The FDA is advising physicians and patients with diabetes to not use glucose monitoring devices that employ strips that contain glucose dehydrogenase pyrroloquinoline quinone, or GDH-PQQ, when patients also are receiving therapeutic products containing nonglucose sugars. Inaccurate test results obtained with concomitant use of these products could prompt excessive insulin administration, potentially resulting in hypoglycemia, coma or death.

The agency said nonglucose sugars contained in some therapeutic products -- such as peritoneal dialysis solutions and certain immunoglobulins -- can falsely elevate glucose test results. Such therapeutic products are labeled to indicate that they may interfere with glucose monitoring and primarily are used in patients with serious medical conditions, including kidney failure and moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

The FDA listed the manufacturers and brands of glucose test strips that contain GDH-PQQ in the agency's public health notification and its advice for patients.

The agency said the test strips in question often are used in health care facilities, which should instead use a laboratory assay to measure a patient's glucose if the patient also is receiving a product that could interfere with test results.

CMS is providing educational outreach programs to help the nation's physicians and hospitals better understand -- and be prepared to deal with -- the agency's Recovery Audit Contractor, or RAC, antifraud program.

As part of the agency's outreach, the RAC contractor for Kansas and 16 other states and territories in region "D" recently held a meeting in the Kansas City area and announced the launch of a Health Data Insights Web site that will help health care professionals understand what problems could trigger an RAC investigation.

Currently, seven CMS-approved issues are identified for the region. The issues focus on identifying claims for medically unlikely or incorrectly reported units of service. Areas of investigation may vary by region, as evidenced by CMS' list of RAC audit issues approved for South Carolina and Florida, both of which are in region "C."

Provider outreach meetings (9-page PDF; About PDFs) have been scheduled for states in all four CMS regions of the country.