Leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee have written to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma to praise her agency’s work in eliminating Medicare red tape – but also asking her to “…take further steps to improve patient care by alleviating administrative and regulatory burdens for Medicare providers.”
In three separate letters, committee chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Health Subcommittee chairman Peter Roskam (R-IL) expressed their pleasure with CMS’s recent efforts but specified areas where they would like to see further action.
For hospitals, they wrote that they seek further red-tape cutting in the areas of Medicare conditions of participation, facility co-location, hospital quality star ratings, and meaningful measures.
For post-acute-care providers, they want CMS to address the long-term acute-care hospital 25 percent rule, to hold more inpatient rehabilitation facility open-door forums, and to address skilled nursing facility consolidated billing, documentation to satisfy home health eligibility, and hospice medical review audits.
And for physicians, they urged CMS to continue working to improve the Medicare physician fee schedule, the outpatient prospective payment system, and payments for durable medical equipment and other medical equipment and supplies.
Go here to see the Ways and Means letter addressing hospital issues, here to see the letter addressing post-acute care issues, and here to see the letter addressing physician issues.