AIQ Solutions Secures New Medical Billing Code
AIQ Solutions, a firm specializing in late-stage cancer analysis, announced it has received a new Category III CPT code. This is a major commercial milestone that will allow healthcare providers to bill for the use of its TRAQinform IQ technology, paving the way for wider adoption.
The challenge in treating late-stage cancer lies in "lesion heterogeneity," where a therapy may shrink some tumors while others continue to grow. Monitoring this manually is incredibly difficult when a patient might have hundreds of metastatic lesions. This variability in response is a primary reason why treatments that initially seem promising can ultimately fail. AIQ Solutions was founded in 2015 by a team from the University of Wisconsin, including a nurse, a medical oncologist, a medical physicist, and a software architect, to address this specific problem. Their TRAQinform IQ technology automates the analysis of PET and CT scans to provide a comprehensive view of how each individual lesion is responding to treatment, offering a more precise picture of treatment effectiveness. The newly secured Category III CPT code is a temporary code for emerging technologies, allowing for data collection to prove widespread usage and efficacy. While it doesn't guarantee immediate reimbursement from all payers, it establishes a formal way for healthcare providers to bill for using TRAQinform IQ, which is a critical step toward broader clinical adoption. This code allows AIQ to gather the necessary data to eventually apply for a permanent Category I code. To transition from a Category III to a Category I code, AIQ will need to demonstrate the clinical efficacy of its technology through peer-reviewed U.S. literature and show that the service is performed by many healthcare professionals in multiple locations. This process typically takes several years as the company builds a body of evidence to present to the American Medical Association's CPT Editorial Panel. The Madison, Wisconsin-based company has raised over $7 million in funding from investors, including Capital Midwest Fund and Rock River Capital Partners, and has also been supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute. This financial backing has been crucial for the extensive research and development required to bring their technology from a university-born concept to a commercially viable tool with a dedicated billing code.
