As part of President Obama’s commitment to reducing regulatory burden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius today announced that HHS will initiate a process to postpone the date by which certain health care entities have to comply with International Classification of Diseases, 10th…
Congress will probably slap another temporary fix on the looming Medicare Physician Fee Schedule SGR Cuts by postponing the cuts again through the end of the calendar year, and past the elections as well. There will be no Monday morning political quarterbacks wishing they had punted – because this team, as has every team for…
Medicare pay cut averted; Congress OKs
two-month patch
Physicians got a brief reprieve from a 27 percent Medicare pay cut Friday when the U.S. House of Representatives reached agreement with the Senate on a two-month extension of important policies that expire on Jan. 1.
The U.S. Senate last week voted to extend current Medicare …
The U.S. House of Representatives today rejected a Senate bill that would have averted a 27.4 percent Medicare physician payment cut scheduled for Jan. 1 and extended an expiring payroll tax reduction and unemployment insurance benefits. The net result was to leave 2012 Medicare payment rates in limbo.
Continue Reading AMA ALERT-Congress Fails to Avert Medicare Payment Cut
It may seem contradictory that Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) are championed as the new answer to manage more efficiently (i.e. improve quality and reduce costs) when the most popular form of ACOs, i.e. the Medicare Shared Savings Program, established in 2010 as a component of the Patient Protection and Accountable Care Act has yet to…
Supercommittee failure leaves 27 percent Medicare payment cut in place With the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction failing to reach agreement on a deficit-reduction proposal, physicians still face a 27 percent cut in Medicare physician payments scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. Congress has missed an opportunity to address the nation’s fiscal problems, stabilize…
CMS ANNOUNCES POLICY, PAYMENT RATE CHANGES FOR THE PHYSICIAN FEE SCHEDULE IN 2012
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today issued a final rule with comment period that updates payment policies and rates for physicians and nonphysician practitioners (NPPs) for services paid under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) in calendar year (CY)
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HHS has issued its 2012 OIG Work Plan. Following are some particular areas of concern for physicians:
Physician-Owned Distributors of Spinal Implants: OIG will determine the extent to which physician-owned distributors (PODs) provide spinal implants purchased by hospitals and whether PODs are associated with high use of spinal implants. The Work Plan notes that Congress has…
CMS has finally released the final rule for the Medicare Shared Savings Program, which is the program that establishes the rules for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).
The initial industry objections to the ACO concept and the proposed regulations was that it was so complicated, so limited and potentially so expensive that it would be impossible…
CMS has taken a small step to implement President Obama’s executive order instructing federal agencies to eliminate regulations that obsolete or overly burdensome to business.
On October 24, 2011 CMS published the final rule revising Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) conditions for coverage to allow patient rights information to be provided to the patient, the patient’s…
