The Joint Section has charged four members of the Executive Council to form task forces with specific goals of providing practice guidelines, reimbursement strategies and defining training standards in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery. Leaders of the task forces include Douglas Kondziolka, MD (stereotactic radiosurgery), Lucia Zamorano, MD and Robert Maciunas, MD (image-guided neurosurgery), Roy Bakay, MD (movement disorders), and David Roberts, MD (epilepsy).
Reimbursement guidelines continue to be a challenging area. A recent preliminary ruling by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) suggested that a stereotactic pallidotomy was an investigational procedure that would not be covered by Medicare reimbursement. Richard Penn, MD, and Dr. Bakay met with HCFA representatives to relay the position of the Joint Section. The position of the Executive Committee of the Joint Section on Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery is that stereotactic pallidotomy is a recognized procedure with an appropriately assigned CPT code, which is beneficial for the management of medically refractory Parkinson’s disease, especially when characterized by dyskinesia, rigidity and bradykinesia.
Educational Programs
The Joint Section will present a special symposium on image-guided surgical microscopes at the 1996 AANS Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. David Roberts, MD, Richard Bucholz, MD, and James Ausman, MD will present the symposium. A special resident award will be presented to Daniel M. Lieberman, MD, for his talk entitled “Selective Lesioning of Large Brain Structures using High Flow Microinfusion of Neurotoxins: Chemo-pallidotomy Reverses Experimental Parkinsonism.” An open scientific session will follow.
The Joint Section will conduct a special symposium on the “Current Management of Metastic Brain Tumors” at the 1996 Congress of Neurological Surgeons in Montreal. Ray Sawaya, MD, will present surgical strategies, and Michael Rutigliano, MD, will discuss cost-effective issues. Minesh Mehta, MD, will present the role of radiosurgery with and without fractionated radiation therapy. An open scientific session will follow.