News

CMS’ Hospital Outpatient Payment (HOP) panel made numerous recommendations at its annual meeting August 19 for the agency to consider ahead of the release of the 2020 OPPS final rule—with the panel and other stakeholders urging CMS to be more transparent with its responses and release of data.

CMS released the fiscal year (FY) 2020 IPPS final rule on August 2, increasing inpatient operating payment rates by 3.1%, significantly altering rural health payments, and expediting opportunities to pay for new technologies. Policy updates affect approximately 3,300 acute care hospitals and apply to discharges occurring on and after October 1.

A U.S. Senate bill aimed at protecting patients from surprise medical bills could also save the federal government about $7.5 billion over the next decade, according the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Put CMS’ proposed changes in perspective to see the bigger picture.

Officials say the move will result in lower healthcare costs by unleashing competition. Some industry stakeholders are disputing that claim.

The CDC has posted the FY 2020 ICD-CM final code changes, and there were no changes to the proposed list of 273 new, 30 revised and 21 invalidated codes that were released in the proposed inpatient hospital prospective payment system rule, April 23.

As part of its Patients Over Paperwork initiative, CMS is collecting public input on ways to reduce unnecessary administrative and regulatory burden.

The new instructions replace those issued via the April update to the Outpatient Prospective Payment System.

CMS modified its proposal to expand prior authorization and step therapy to protected classes of drugs for Part D and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, according to a final rule released May 16.