The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in a final rule issued Nov. 1 that Medicare payments in 2012 will increase by 1.9 percent to hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) and 1.6 percent to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).
In addition to establishing 2012 payment rates for HOPDs and ASCs, the final rule with comment period:
- Expands the measures to be reported under the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program
- Creates a new quality reporting program for ASCs
- Addresses Hospital Value-based Purchasing (Hospital VBP) program requirements
- Establishes an electronic reporting pilot that will allow additional hospitals, including critical access hospitals (CAHs), to report clinical quality measures in 2012 for the purpose of participating in the Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program
- Provides a payment adjustment for designated cancer hospitals
November 14th, 2011
The 2012 ambulance inflation factor (AIF) for determining the payment limit for ambulance services is 2.4 percent.
This year’s AIF is based on the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) 2012 rate of 3.6 percent less the multi-factor productivity (MFP) rate of 1.2 percent.
The Affordable Care Act mandates the CPI-U to be reduced by the MFP, even if this reduction results in a negative AIF update, as it did last year (the 2011 AIF was -0.1 percent).
For more information, see Transmittal 2310, Change Request 7546, issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Sept. 23.
September 29th, 2011
Twenty-one U.S. senators sent a letter dated Aug. 5 to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Administrator Donald Berwick, M.D., asking for the agency “to use its existing discretionary authority to make an important modification to the ASC payment system.”
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August 27th, 2010
Suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies (DMEPOS) will not see a fee schedule update for 2010 due to a negative 1.41 percentage change in the Consumer Price Index-Urban (CPI-U) for the 12-month period ending with June 2009.
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November 16th, 2009
The 2010 payment limits for splints and casts will be based on 2009 payment limits. Due to a -1.41 percent change in the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) for the 12-month period ending June 2009, the inflation indexed charge (IIC) update factor for 2010 is 0 percent. (more…)
November 2nd, 2009