Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
MedPAC Considers No Pay Raise for Ambulatory Surgical Centers
Next month MedPAC will likely vote to recommend that ambulatory surgical centers receive no increase in their Medicare payments in 2021. Meeting last week in Washington, D.C., members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission appeared to support strongly a staff recommendation to keep Medicare ambulatory surgical center payments where they are now – enough so to expedite resolution of the issue by voting on it at MedPAC’s next meeting, in mid-January. MedPAC also will vote on a proposal to require ambulatory surgical centers to provide annual cost reports to the [...]
President, VP Attempt to Mediate HHS Feud
President Trump and Vice President Pence have stepped into a feud between Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma. Azar and Verma have apparently clashed on numerous occasions in recent months, with Verma criticizing at least one Azar proposal during an Oval Office meeting and Azar being overruled by the president on several occasions. According to Politico, President Trump “…instructed Azar to smooth things over.” Verma, meanwhile, met with Vice President Pence, with whom she worked when Pence was governor [...]
Prescription Drug Bill Would Kill Two Years of Medicaid DSH Cuts
Two years of Medicaid DSH cuts would be eliminated under a new prescription drug bill released last week by the Senate Finance Committee. The Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act includes a provision that would eliminate two years of Affordable Care Act-mandated cuts in the allocation of federal money to the states for Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH). Those cuts have been delayed several times by Congress but were scheduled to begin in October of 2019 and run through federal FY 2025, only to be delayed again twice by [...]
MedPAC Meets
Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of Medicare payment issues. The issues on MedPAC’s December agenda were: Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Physician and other health professional services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Ambulatory surgical center services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Hospital inpatient and outpatient services; Mandated report: Expanding the post-acute care transfer policy to hospice Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Skilled nursing facility services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Home health care services Assessing payment [...]
Home Health Agencies Expanding Scope of Endeavor
In the coming years, home health agencies will be providing a broader scope of services. With many such agencies already offering medication management technology, remote patient monitoring, image-sharing technology, and mobile apps for e-visits, many are planning to do more. More than a quarter of home health providers plan to move into or expand their telehealth offerings in the coding years and many already provide chronic care services, with more planning to do so in the coming years. Home health providers also are moving into palliative care, veteran-specific services, and [...]