A customer of mine has asked me if there is Medicare reimbursement for using BiPAP on a patient with a trach. She has gotten info from the head of her rehab department that Medicare will not reimburse for this as it is “not an approved therapy or standard of care”. Her question is then why are they using it on some of their ICU patients if is not covered. Obviously, keeping them from being ventilated is a goal and much better outcome, but I would appreciate any information I could get. Thanks in advance.

Invasive bipap is only approved for the Bipap vision by the FDA that I'm aware of. It has alarm paramenters that home bipap machines do not have. Since hospitals get paid a flat DRG fee, what equipment used is irrelevent to medicare as long as it is FDA approved. Patients in the home are a whole different reimbursement issue. It gets very complicated depending on whether they have OSA or respiratory failure.