Guidelines for Studies Conducted Through MCOHR and the Dental School

MCOHR (Michigan Center for Oral Health Research) and Dental School studies are exceptions to the current standard clinical research billing practices and Medicare Coverage Review Analysis.  Dental procedures are not a covered Medicare Benefit.  However, there is still a need for a billing calendar to be completed and reviewed by the Clinical Research Calendar Review and Analysis Office (CRAO), for those studies that have items or services that are billable through the UMHS. CRAO will receive automated alerts from eResearch for calendars that meet review criteria based on the answers to one’s IRB application. 

MCOHR and the Dental School are housed under the umbrella of the School of Dentistry. MCOHR studies are sponsored clinical trials. Many Dental School studies are unsponsored, Principal Investigator-initiated studies. The items and services of the study that could be potentially billed to a health plan include laboratory services as well as DEXA scans (Dual Energy X-ray Absorpitiometry). These are items that generally take place at Michigan Medicine and are billed through the Michigan Medicine billing systems. CRAO does not perform the Medicare Coverage Analysis (MCA) or the billing calendar review for studies with items and services that occur in dental research space or are limited to dental items/services which are normally billed to a patient’s dental insurance plan.   

CRAO will perform our review for MCOHR and Dental School studies that have items and services that are billable through Michigan Medicine billing. CRAO will review the supporting documents and the billing calendar to determine which items and services have the potential to be billed.