Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Some ambulance services will get a "super-rural" bonus under an interim final rule issued July 1 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The bonus increases the base rate by 22.6 percent for trips that originate in rural areas in the lowest population-density quartile of all rural areas. CMS says this increase, which runs from July 1, 2004, through Dec. 31, 2009, is intended to help ambulance services transition to the national fee schedule that went into effect on April 1, 2002. The rule, which implements section 414 of the Medicare Modernization Act, also gives general payment increases of 1 percent to urban ambulance services, and 2 percent to rural services, for trips between July 1, 2004, and Dec. 31, 2006. It additionally bumps up mileage rates by 25 percent across the board for all miles carrying a beneficiary above the 50th mile on trips between July 1, 2004 and Dec. 31, 2008. Comments on the rule are due by August 30.