Tag: quality reporting program

Comments Due Aug. 16 on Medicare Home Health PPS Proposed Rule

Member News

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the proposed rule to update the Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) home health (HH) prospective payment system (PPS) effective Jan. 1, 2023. Highlights of the proposal include:

  • A net 6.25% decrease in the national, 30-day standardized payment amount after the estimated 6.9 percentage point cut to achieve budget-neutrality for the Patient-Driven Groupings Model on a prospective basis. The proposed payment rate is $1,904.76, down from the current $2,031.64 for HHs that comply with HH quality reporting program (QRP) requirements.
  • An increase in the fixed-dollar loss ratio from the current 0.40 to 0.44.
  • A permanent 5% cap on wage index decreases to mitigate significant payment reductions from wage index changes.
  • Comment solicitation regarding the data collection on the use of remote services at the individual beneficiary level, which would allow the CMS to analyze the characteristics of the beneficiaries using remote services and potential for identifying social determinants of health that impact use of remote services.
  • Ending the suspension of data submission for non-Medicare/non-Medicaid patients. HH agencies would be required to submit all-payer OASIS data for purposes of the HH QRP beginning with the 2025 program year.
  • Changes to the Expanded HH value-based purchasing (VBP) model, including definitions for the baseline and model year, changing the baseline year from 2019 to 2022 for existing HH agencies and modifying the model year from 2019 to 2022 beginning in 2023.
  • Seeking feedback on development of health equity measures for the HH QRP and potential future application of health equity in the Expanded HH VBP model’s scoring and payment methodologies.

The MHA will provide members with an estimated impact analysis within the next few weeks and share draft comments prior to the Aug. 16 deadline. The MHA encourages members with HH operations to review the impact of the proposed rule on their operations and submit comments to the CMS. Members that have not received impact analyses in the past for affiliated, free-standing HH agencies are encouraged to provide the agency’s CMS certification number (also known as Medicare provider number), agency name, and federal information processing standards code to receive an estimated impact analysis in the future. Members are encouraged to forward this information and questions to Vickie Kunz at the MHA.

Medicare Outpatient Payment Final Rule Makes Changes for 2022

Member News

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a final rule to update the Medicare fee-for-service outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) effective Jan. 1, 2022. Provisions of the rule will:

  • Increase the civil monetary penalty (CMP) for hospitals that fail to comply with the price transparency requirements that took effect Jan. 1, 2021. The CMS is setting a minimum CMP of $300/day that will apply to smaller hospitals with a bed count of 30 or fewer and a penalty of $10/bed/day for hospitals with a bed count greater than 30, up to a maximum daily penalty of $5,500.
  • Increase the standard outpatient conversion factor by 1.7%, from $82.80 to $84.18, for hospitals that comply with the outpatient quality reporting program (QRP) requirements.
  • Implement a cost outlier threshold of $6,175, a 16.5% increase from the current threshold of $5,300.
  • Halt the elimination of the inpatient only list and add back to the list the services removed in 2021 except for CPT codes 22630 (Lumbar spine fusion), 23472 (Reconstruct shoulder joint), 27702 (Reconstruct ankle joint) and their corresponding anesthesia codes.
  • Reinstate the ambulatory surgical center (ASC) covered procedures list (CPL) criteria that were in effect in 2020 and prior years and adopt a process, beginning in March 2022, to allow an external party to nominate a surgical procedure to be added to the ASC CPL.
  • Continue the current policy of paying a reduced amount of average sales price minus 22.5% for drugs and biologicals purchased under the 340B drug discount program. The CMS will continue to exempt rural sole community hospitals, prospective payment-exempt cancer hospitals and children’s hospitals from the reduced payment policy implemented for most hospitals in 2018.
  • Make non-opioid pain management drugs and biologicals that function as a surgical supply in the ASC setting eligible for separate payment when such product is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, indicated for pain management or as an analgesic, and has a per-day cost above the OPPS drug packaging threshold.
  • Modify the hospital outpatient QRP by adopting three new measures, including the COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage Among Health Care Personnel measure in the OPPS and ASC settings, and removing two measures:
  • OP-02: Fibrinolytic Therapy Received Within 30 Minutes of Emergency Department Arrival measure.
  • OP-03: Median Time to Transfer to Another Facility for Acute Coronary Intervention measure.
  • Require mandatory reporting of the outpatient and ASC consumer assessment of healthcare providers and systems patient experience survey beginning in 2024.
  • Make several modifications to the Radiation Oncology Model and officially launch the model Jan. 1, 2022.

The CMS received input on the new Rural Emergency Hospital designation and continues to review comments; the agency will respond to the comments in future rulemaking. The CMS also received input on making reporting of health disparities based on social risk factors and race and ethnicity more comprehensive and actionable by including additional demographic data points.

The MHA will provide hospitals with an estimated impact analysis of the final rule soon. Members with questions should contact Vickie Kunz at the MHA.