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Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Note:

Watch For New Medicare Wage Index System

Published on Fri Apr 20, 2012

Will unfair exceptions finally go away? CMS is recommending a new hospital wage index system to Congress, but don't expect it to remedy the home care industry's wage index problems. In a report submitted to Congress this month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Ser-vices offers the "Commuting Based Wage Index" system for hospitals. The new system aims to eliminate problems like significant differences in wage index levels for nearby hospitals. "The CBWI is based upon actual employment patterns of hospitals," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says in an April 11 letter to congressional leaders. The new wage index system might not actually change much for home care providers. CMS could apply the new CBWI to non-hospital providers via a number of proximity-based methods, the report suggests. Or "adopting the CBWI for hospitals would not preclude continuing to use the current Medicare pre-reclassification wage index for these other [...]
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