A new Medicare cost-control program aimed at reducing costly hospital readmissions has heart failure squarely in the cross-hairs, and the consequences could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost Medicare revenue for hospitals that fail to meet the new readmission standards. As a result, providers are scrambling to implement programs to assess and reduce heart failure readmissions, and a growing number of device companies are touting a variety of technologies they believe could help them achieve that goal.

A new Medicare cost-control program aimed at reducing costly hospital readmissions has heart failure squarely in the cross-hairs, and the consequences could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost Medicare revenue for hospitals that fail to meet the new readmission standards. As a result, providers are scrambling to implement programs to assess and reduce heart failure readmissions, and a growing number of device companies are touting a variety of technologies they believe could help them achieve that goal.

Although the spine market appears to be stabilizing to some extent, the vertebral compression fracture market continues to be challenged by reimbursement issues and lingering controversy stemming from the New England Journal of Medicine articles questioning the efficacy of vertebroplasty and vertebral augmentation as a treatment for VCFs.

Brief summaries of recent medtech market and industry developments. This month we cover transcatheter valve news announced at ACC, Covidien's brain aneurysm device, NMT Medical closing shop, J&J's move to acquire Synthes and VisualSonics in vivo imaging technology for cancer.