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Editorial commentary
That's our policy!
  1. Joshua A Hirsch1,
  2. Felipe C Albuquerque2,
  3. David Fiorella3,
  4. Charles J Prestigiacomo4,
  5. Osama O Zaidat5,
  6. Robert W Tarr6
  1. 1NeuroEndovascular Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  2. 2Division of Neurological Surgery, Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
  3. 3Department of Neurosurgery, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York, USA
  4. 4Department of Neurological Surgery, New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, New Jersey, USA
  5. 5Department of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Radiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
  6. 6Department of Radiology, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Ohio, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr J A Hirsch, NeuroEndovascular Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit, Street, Gray 241B, Boston, MA 02114, USA; hirsch{at}snisonline.org

https://doi.org/10.1136/neurintsurg-2013-010956

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    Since our inception, the editorial group at JNIS has appreciated the historic opportunity that this journal provides our readership and the broader neurointerventional (NI) community. The journal has established a home dedicated exclusively to NI content. By partnering with the BMJ Group, a recognized international leader in publishing, the ultimate success of this endeavor has been enhanced.

    Recognizing this unique moment and forum, the editorial staff has strived to solicit and publish an abundance of content focused on healthcare policy. Indeed, our journal is distinguished from many of its peers by the sophisticated review articles on policy that would be of interest to NI readers. We use this editorial comment to reflect on those articles and update the relevant issues as they stand in the fall of 2013.

    Relative Value Scale Update Committee

    In 2011 and 2012, we reviewed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) preliminary and final rules to provide an assessment of payment policy of interest to NI practitioners.1 ,2 The 2011 review included substantial materials on how payment policy is derived and appropriate historical context. In lieu of more recent updates, we have published articles on the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) and the seeming demise of the component coding system along with a podcast on the same.3 ,4 Focusing on these more contemporary articles, the RUC finds itself under attack.5 ,6 Indeed, as neurointerventionalists realize some of the more recent changes to the fee schedule (one example is provided in box 1 of the article on Component Coding), they might be quick to criticize the RUC themselves.3 The challenge for NI surgery is that proposed alternatives, including …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors contributed equally.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; not externally peer reviewed.