Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
Count Pennies To Cope With Proposed IPPS Rates
Hospitals, watch out: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' proposal to expand the post-acute care transfer policy could cut facilities' Medicare payments.
CMS' inpatient prospective payment system proposed rule could cut nearly $900 million from hospital payments in fiscal year 2006, the American Hospital Association wrote in a letter to CMS administrator Mark McClellan.
CMS' post-acute care transfer policy expansion dramatically reduces hospitals' Medicare payments, undermines clinical decision-making and "penalizes hospitals for providing the right care at the right time and in the right setting," the AHA argues.
CMS' proposed 2.5 percent per-case payment increase is inadequate, because the current market basket rate of increase is estimated at 4.1 percent, the AHA says.
The AHA is also concerned with CMS' outlier fixed-loss threshold increases, claiming that they are "inappropriately high."
The IPPS proposed rule would prevent critical access hospitals from rebuilding more than 250 yards from their locations. "We urge CMS to rescind this overly restrictive policy and allow necessary provider critical access hospitals to relocate as needed to improve the care and meet the needs of their communities," the AHA says.
To read the AHA's letter, go to http://www.aha.org/aha/advocacygrassroots/advocacy/comment/content/IPPSProposedFY06nosign.pdf.
Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
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