Eli's Rehab Report
CMS Gears Up for New Therapy Payment Study
You may have just heard about the CMS contract with Research Triangle Institute to carry out the DOTPA project (Developing Outpatient Therapy Payment Alternatives). That's not the only study CMS just initiated. The agency recently launched a new two-year project, Short Term Alternatives for Therapy Services (STATS), to explore options to address the Medicare outpatient therapy caps, according to a Nov. 21 report from PT Bulletin Online, the weekly newsletter from the American Physical Therapy Association. APTA members and staff, along with other healthcare providers and organizations recently met with CMS officials and its contractor CSC for "kickoff" discussions. The new study is a separate initiative from the three- to five-year DOTPA, the Bulletin clarified. That study is focusing on developing and testing a patient assessment tool that could identify payment alternatives to the therapy cap. In the STATs project, "APTA members will participate in three workgroups on clinical issues, instrument assessment, and policy issues that will provide-input into the development of these short-term alternatives," the Bulletin said.
Eli's Rehab Report
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