Device for acid reflux approved by FDA, but not by insurers

[Star Tribune, May 17, 2015] The paperwork stacks up slowly but steadily.

Some months, the pile of appeals from insurance companies denying coverage of a medical implant for severe acid reflux is more than a foot high in Minneapolis surgeon Dr. Dan Dunn’s office. Such appeals take months or years to resolve, and may still end in denial even though the government has approved the device.

“We had, at one point, 40 patients,” Dunn said, describing appeals for coverage denials for the Linx, an implantable device that controls acid-reflux and is made by the Shoreview medical device company Torax Medical Inc.

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