Medicare Will Cover CT Lung Cancer Screening

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on February 5, 2015, that CT lung cancer screening will be a covered service.  This long awaited decision followed the preliminary announcement in November 2014.  After a period of comment, the coverage ages were expanded to include patients 55-77 years old.  The process mandates maintenance of a registry, smoking cessation counseling, and physician orders for each of the elements rather than patient self-referral.