Medicare site-neutral payments

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 [...]

iqtsupport2019-01-30T06:00:38-05:00January 30, 2019|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospitals, Medicare, 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 [...]

iqtsupport2018-10-10T06:00:53-04:00October 10, 2018|Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy, MedPAC|

New Reg Pushes Medicare Toward Site-Neutral Outpatient Payments

Medicare would make more payments for outpatient services on a site-neutral basis under a newly proposed regulation just released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The 2019 Medicare outpatient prospective payment system regulation, published in proposal form, calls for: paying physician fee schedule rates rather than hospital outpatient rates at excepted off-campus provider-based departments; slashing payments for office visits; extending this year’s 340B prescription drug discount payments, already cut nearly 30 percent this year, to additional providers; and raising ambulatory surgical center rates and expanding the list of procedures that can be performed in such facilities so they [...]

iqtsupport2018-07-27T06:00:18-04:00July 27, 2018|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospitals, Medicare, Medicare regulations|