Hubei brain pacemaker system is included in medical insurance and the first batch of benefited patients are discharged

China News Service, Wuhan, November 6 (Tian Juan) Granny Ge, a 72-year-old Parkinson's disease patient, was discharged from the Sino-French New City Campus of Wuhan Tongji Hospital on the 6th. She became the first patient to be settled and reimbursed after Hubei included the brain pacemaker system, a consumable for deep brain stimulation, into the payment scope of basic medical insurance.

It is understood that the brain pacemaker system included in the medical insurance reimbursement this time includes three types of core consumables: deep brain stimulators, cranial nerve stimulation electrodes, and cranial nerve stimulation electrode leads. This means that deep brain stimulation therapy, known as a typical application of cutting-edge brain-computer interface technology, will be supported by full-process medical insurance in Hubei from pre-operative assessment, surgical implantation to postoperative rehabilitation.

Granny Ge has been suffering from Parkinson's disease for 7 years. When drug treatment was not effective, she recently received deep brain stimulation treatment at Wuhan Tongji Hospital. According to past policies, he personally had to bear nearly 250,000 yuan; after the brain pacemaker system was included in the medical insurance reimbursement, his personal expenses dropped to more than 80,000 yuan.

Jiang Wei, chief physician of the Neurosurgery Department of Wuhan Tongji Hospital, said that deep brain stimulation is precisely positioned and most patients' tremors, stiffness, and slow movements will be improved after surgery. But in the past, some patients repeatedly weighed the cost and decided to undergo surgery only when their condition was very serious.

In Jiang Wei's view, the inclusion of brain pacemaker systems in medical insurance reimbursement will, on the one hand, reduce patients' medical expenses, allow more patients in the middle and late stages to receive the neuromodulation treatment recommended by the guideline, improve their self-care ability, and reduce the consumption of medical insurance resources caused by repeated hospitalizations due to complications such as falls and lung infections; on the other hand, it will also help the clinic choose innovative consumables based on their condition.

Jiang Wei said that deep brain stimulation treatment involves preoperative assessment, surgery, programming and rehabilitation. The improvement of payment conditions will help the hospital improve the multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment system of functional neurosurgery, promote clinical research, promote hierarchical diagnosis and treatment, make the full course management chain of movement disorder diseases more complete, and create conditions for the widespread clinical application of brain-computer interface technology to benefit more patients. (over)