"Sick with depression Harriet Bruce spent her days lying in bed for months at a time. Pills didnt work. Neither did psychotherapy. Then she agreed to a transcranial magnetic stimulation. The new treatment pushes powerful magnetic currents into the front of the brain the part that controls emotions. These days Bruce awakens before her alarm goes off and dives into projects including monster tasks she once dreaded. I have a room in my house in which I had stacked boxes from when we moved  years ago that I wanted to get to but I couldnt do it the Centerville woman said. But Ive been working on that. Transcranial magnetic stimulation once considered an experimental treatment for depression is gaining acceptance since it came on the market four years ago. Beginning Saturday Medicare will cover the treatments when other therapies have failed. This week specialty insurance administrator Magellan Behavioral Health Inc. issued medical necessity guidelines for TMS treatment and will provide coverage effective Jan. . Doctors who use the NeuroStar TMS Therapy system say treatments are more effective than medications with far fewer side effects. Its an alternative to electroconvulsive therapy  shock treatments  for patients who have not responded to drugs or psychotherapy. But TMS is expensive. It can cost as much as  for a minute session and require multiple treatments. The total bill can range between  and . The cost however is less than an extended hospital stay. We had several patients who were headed toward the hospital who had this treatment and were able to avoid that said Dr. Scott West a psychiatrist who pioneered the treatment in Nashville  and onehalf years ago. The NeuroStar system resembles a dentists chair. A patient sits in the chair while a magnetic pulse emitter transmits energy from a levered arm  a process similar to undergoing dental Xrays. The device makes a clicking noise while delivering the magnetic pulses. When this large magnet pulses repetitively it causes an electromagnetic field which then passes through the skull and stimulates the brain tissue itself said West explaining a cascading effect that results in the interior nerve fibers connecting better. Dr. Michelle Cochran purchased her TMS system about  months ago. The devices cost around  Cochran said who has treated  patients with the therapy. Most people are not scared of it she said. It sounds sort of creepy and weird when you think about it but for the most part it is safer in general than taking a medicine. Youve got less seizure risk than taking a medicine. Youve got less side effects than taking a medicine. Both Cochran and West cite high patient response rates. A clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health revealed a significant effect of treatment when patients received TMS treatment. It compared outcomes of patients who actually received the magnetic pulses against patients in a sham group who sat down in the treatment chair for fake sessions. Depressed patients who received the real TMS treatment had remission rates four times higher than those in the sham group. However insurers including UnitedHealthcare and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee remain reluctant to embrace the treatment. UnitedHealthcares medical policy for TMS says it is unproven for treating depression. Generally speaking just because a device procedure or medication has been approved or is deemed to be safe by some entities does not mean that it is automatically covered BlueCross BlueShield spokeswoman Kelly Allen said. Quality and safety are our first priority in setting our medical policy but those have to be balanced with affordability. Cochran does not accept Medicare and has chosen to be an outofnetwork provider. West is a Medicare provider. Said West Typically when Medicare starts to cover something the excuse of experimental and investigational is no longer valid."