If a physician, supplier, or other person knowingly & willfully improperly bills or collects for service on a repeated basis, or fails to comply with the requirement of an adjustment to billed charges, or the requirement of refund, HCFAi may apply sanctions under Section 1842(j)(2) of the Act. There are civil monetary penalties of up to $10,000 of each instance of overcharging, assessments of up to twice the amount overcharged, and/or exclusion from the Medicarei program for up to 5 years.
Small pieces of radioactive material that are inserted into the body for treatment.
A clinical process used to establish the radiation therapy treatment beams to the specified treatment volume that was determined by treatment planning. The process of simulation can only be done by the radiation oncology physician who has a complete knowledge of the location & extent of the patients malignancy. Simulationi is used to establish each of the individual treatment beams directed to the area of treatment.
X-ray machine set up to simulate the radiation treatment machine.
This is the measurement of the actual treatment beam in use. This is used to minimize any amount of error for the final dosage. So in order to be absolutely certain of the exact dosage being delivered, it is often necessary to perform special dosimetry measurements of the actual beam in use.
The use of external radiation sources either from a linear accelerator (X-Knife), or a special Cobalt-60 (Gamma Knife) irradiator to deliver many small beams of radiation, all focused on an internal area, such as a brain tumor.
3D external beam radiation therapy using stereotactic guidance to deliver a precise high dose of radiation to a defined area to reduce the damage to normal surrounding tissues.
A treatment technique using a large dose of radiation to a small volume tumor, typically using multiple narrowly focused radiation beams from different angles.