Medicare site-neutral outpatient payments

Federal Health Policy Update for March 7

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for March 1-7. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress On Wednesday, March 16 the House passed, by a vote of 339-85, the first package of spending bills to fund some federal agencies through the remainder of the 2024 federal fiscal year. The House bills include several health care provisions extending programs that were set to expire on Friday, March 8. The bills would extend the following provisions and programs through December 31, 2024: The continued delay of cuts to Medicaid disproportionate [...]

joe2024-03-07T21:42:53+00:00March 7, 2024|Alternative payment models, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Congress, hospitals, MACPAC, Medicaid, Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, Medicaid DSH, Medicaid DSH allotments, Medicaid regulations, Medicare, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy, MedPAC, post-acute care|

Hospitals Rally Against Medicare Site-Neutral Payments

A proposal to save Medicare nearly $4 billion over a decade is running into stiff opposition. From hospitals. – and some members of Congress. Medicare has long paid more for outpatient services provided in hospital-based outpatient departments than it has for the same services delivered in private doctors’ offices. Critics say this is unfair, that Medicare should pay the same no matter where the service is provided. Defenders of the practice maintain that hospital-based outpatient departments share higher fixed costs, including for ERs and care for uninsured patients. They also argue that reducing such Medicare outpatient payments could threaten the [...]

joe2024-02-15T13:42:15+00:00February 16, 2024|Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Federal Health Policy Update for Thursday, February 3

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 3. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Provider Relief Fund The reconsideration window for Provider Relief Fund Phase 4 payments and American Rescue Plan rural hospital payments is now open for providers to request reconsideration of their payments. This process is intended only for providers that believe their payment was not calculated correctly. They will not have an opportunity to submit an application if they missed a deadline; will not be able to revise or [...]

admin2022-02-03T17:46:52+00:00February 3, 2022|Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, CMMI, Coronavirus, COVID-19, health equity, hospitals, MACPAC, Medicaid, Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy, MedPAC, Telehealth|

Good News and Bad for Hospitals on Outpatient Payments

A federal court has provided relief to hospitals that saw reduced Medicare payments for some outpatient services in 2019. But that relief is only partial. In response to a suit filed by several hospital groups, a federal court ruled that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services had illegally reduced Medicare payments for services provided in some hospital off-campus outpatient departments beginning on January 1, 2019 and ordered the federal government to repay the hospitals for the Medicare revenue they lost. The reduced payments were part of a new Medicare site-neutral payment policy for outpatient services, and CMS has announced [...]

admin2019-12-17T09:40:07+00:00December 17, 2019|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospitals, Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Court Upholds Delay of Site-Neutral Payment Cut

Medicare cannot proceed with its plan to pay for outpatient care on a site-neutral basis while it appeals a court ruling rejecting that policy, a federal court has ruled. A federal judge found that Medicare has not articulated an adequate reason to delay the $380 million a year in site-neutral payment cuts while the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services appeals the September decision rejecting the payment policy change. The court also found that, contrary to CMS’s claim, Medicare still has an appropriate methodology for making payments that are not site-neutral and that the agency has not proved that it [...]

admin2019-10-22T06:00:38+00:00October 22, 2019|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Court Halts Medicare Site-Neutral Payment Changes

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services did not have the authority to implement the site-neutral payment system for Medicare-covered outpatient services that it introduced last year, a federal court has concluded. According to the court, CMS exceeded its authority because it …was not authorized to ignore the statutory process for setting payment rates in the Outpatient Prospective Payment System and to lower payment rates only for certain services provided by certain providers. In general, hospitals oppose the movement toward site-neutral payments and independent physician groups support it. The court did not order CMS to reimburse affected physician practices for [...]

admin2019-09-19T06:00:43+00:00September 19, 2019|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospitals, Medicare, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Hospitals Continue to Employ More Docs, Buy Physician Practices

Between 2012 and 2018, the proportion of U.S. physicians employed by hospitals and health systems rose from 25 percent to 44 percent. And between 2016 and 2018, 14,000 physicians left private practice behind to work for hospitals and health systems while those hospitals and health systems purchased 8000 physician practices. One reason health systems employ physicians and purchase physician practices is enhanced reimbursement: Medicare pays more for services provided in hospital outpatient settings than in private physician offices, although Medicare has been taking steps in recent years to reduce or end this practice through the introduction of site-neutral Medicare outpatient [...]

admin2019-02-26T06:00:41+00:00February 26, 2019|Uncategorized|

Hospitals Sue Over Site-Neutral Outpatient Payment Policy

Nearly 40 hospitals have filed a joint lawsuit in opposition to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ site-neutral payment policy for Medicare-covered outpatient services. In the suit, the hospitals charge the federal government with overstepping its authority in implementing such a change through regulation in the face of past congressional action to limit the use of site-neutral payments. Under its site-neutral payment policy, Medicare pays the same for some outpatient services regardless of where those services are provided. Under Medicare’s previous policy, Medicare paid more for services provided in hospital-run outpatient facilities. Hospitals argue that their outpatient facilities are [...]

admin2019-01-30T06:00:38+00:00January 30, 2019|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospitals, Medicare, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy|

House Members Protest Site-Neutral Payment Proposal

138 members of the House of Representatives have written to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma to protest CMS’s proposal to extend Medicare outpatient site-neutral payment policies to off-campus, provider-based outpatient departments specifically exempted from such policies by Congress under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. In questioning CMS’s rationale for the proposed policy, the House members wrote that It is unclear how CMS has deemed all of the OPD [outpatient department] services at the grandfathered off-campus HOPDs [hospital outpatient departments] as cause of an unnecessary increase in volume of OPD services, and we ask you to [...]

admin2018-10-25T06:00:25+00:00October 25, 2018|Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy|

CMS: More Medicare Site-Neutral Payments Coming

The federal government is unlikely to stop with outpatient visits in its drive to make more Medicare payments on a site-neutral basis. That was the message Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma delivered at a public event last week. We are taking a look at [site-neutral payments] across the board and looking at our authority and where we can weigh in on it. But I think the post-acute space is something where there are a lot of differentials in payments and something we’re very interested in exploring. CMS recently proposed extending its use of site-neutral payments for [...]

admin2018-10-10T06:00:53+00:00October 10, 2018|Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy, MedPAC|