July 15, 2022 – ZOLL® Medical Corporation, an Asahi Kasei company that manufactures medical devices and related software solutions, announced today that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee has issued a new ICD-10-PCS code for TherOx® SuperSaturated Oxygen (SSO2) Therapy. The new code (5A0222C), for cardiac intra-arterial use, is effective for hospital discharges beginning October 1, 2022. The code includes treatment of patients with left anterior descending ST-elevation myocardial infarction (LAD STEMI) heart attacks, which have higher mortality rates than other types of heart attacks. SSO2 Therapy is the first and only FDA-approved treatment that has been clinically proven to significantly reduce damage to cardiac muscle in heart attack patients after coronary angioplasty with stenting.
SSO2 Therapy is indicated for patients who suffer LAD STEMI — also known as “widowmaker” heart attacks due to the high mortality rate — and are treated with stenting within six hours of symptom onset. The therapy delivers high levels of dissolved oxygen at 7–10 times the normal amount directly to the damaged heart muscle immediately after the coronary artery has been successfully opened via angioplasty and stenting. Multiple clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy of SSO2 Therapy to reduce infarct size.
“There are thousands of patients annually who can benefit from SSO2 Therapy, and the new ICD-10-PCS code is a significant milestone in the evolution and external validation of that therapy,” said Christopher Barnabas, President of ZOLL Circulation. “This is a major step toward capturing critical data and further demonstrating improved patient outcomes.”
ICD-10-PCS codes are granted by the CMS Coordination and Maintenance Committee to allow precise specification of procedures for use in health services research, epidemiology, statistical analysis, and administrative areas. The ICD-10-PCS is a procedure classification published by the United States for classifying procedures performed in hospital inpatient health care settings6 and ICD-10-PCS codes are widely used by hospitals to support data collection, payment, and electronic health records.