Home Health & Hospice Week

Congress hasn't yet passed a bill to fix the 21 percent cut that was supposed to hit physicians' Medicare payments June 1, but your referring doctors won't see the cut quite yet.

CMS has instructed its contractors to hold claims for the first 10 business days of June. "This hold will only affect Medicare Physician Fee Schedule claims with dates of service June 1, 2010 and later," a CMS e-mail alert notes.

On May 28 the House passed legislation to put off the cut for 19 months, according to news reports. Physicians would see a 2.2 percent increase for the rest of 2010 and a 1 percent increase for 2011. The Senate won't be back in session until June 7, but is expected to act on a "doc fix" bill quickly.