New HST Codes; What YOU Need to Know

So when did the codes come out, gentlemen? Robert.

July, Jerry, at least the preliminary, I would say the preliminary information came out from Medicare in July.

We are in a period of a comment period right now where sleep providers and companies can submit comments around the initial versions of what all of this looks like.

I have to say, Jerry, and maybe this is a good place for us to start, is that you and I were in Tennessee at the Southern Sleep Society conference months ago.

And at the time, I was incredibly shocked to ask the question of the audience, whether they were aware that these codes were going to be changing.

And there was literally in a room full of 200 people, maybe three or four people at most who raised their hand that were even aware that the current home sleep testing codes were going to sunset at the end of the year and that there would be a whole new set of codes and, uh, which opens up a whole nother area of testing that is not really currently available today.

Um, and, and then the, I think even more shockingly, we were just at Current Concepts last week, the three of us presenting this same information.

And we're still sitting in a room with 200 people, and many of them had no idea that there were going to be changes to the home testing codes.

So I think that that's where we can sort of frame out the conversation today.

And there's a lot of complexity, and I would say nuance to all of this, because at the end of the day, there are There are a lot of things to have to consider if you are a person who operates in this diagnostic space going into 2027.

I'll hush for a minute, Emerson, sorry.

No, no, I appreciate that.

Because I was just going to ask Emerson, the question that begs to come right now, right, is these are all sleep professionals.

You have physicians, you have technologists, you have PAs, you have nurses in there.

and what have you.

They had so many different people, lab managers, yet it was so few that knew that these changes were coming.

Emerson, why do you suppose that is, that there is a lack of knowledge or even understanding that this is going to happen?

You know, I think it's partly a reflection of how the community is not connected to their associations.

You know, people wonder why should I be a part of the AST or the ASM, you know, and stay connected to the national organizations.

This is one of those reasons is if you're not connected, you don't know what's coming.

And it is shocking because so many people have been talking about, you know, in LinkedIn, um you know different you know sleep review magazine has talked about it there's been a lot of sources that have pushed this out there and for so many to still be so um kind of blind for lack of a better word to what's coming is very disconcerting because you know these things can can impact so much you know it's going to impact you know what studies you can and can't do and you know and who knows when you know it's going to affect the private payers but

you

I think it comes back to the sleep technology side of what we do has become so fragmented and separated from each other.

And hopefully this changes in the course of what we see going on.

You know, when you said shocking, it's really interesting the word that you said, that they found it shocking.