Physicians will get a temporary reprieve from Medicare reimbursement payment cuts. Last week, President Barack Obama signed into law the Continuing Extension Act of 2010, which holds off a payment reduction through May 31, 2010. The law is retroactive to April 1, 2010.
“The Administration has repeatedly stated that the formula that determines what physicians and others are paid under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule is broken and needs to be fixed. We will continue to work with Congress to find a long-term solution,” said Jonathan Blum, deputy administrator and director for the Center for Medicare. (Source)
In other news, CMS proposed to update acute care hospital rates by 2.4 percent and apply an adjustment of -2.9 percentage points to recoup half of the estimated excess spending in FY 2008 and FY 2009 aggregate payments. CMS also proposed to update long-term care hospital rates by 2.4 percent for inflation and apply an adjustment of -2.5 percentage points for the estimated increase in spending in FY 2008 and FY 2009, because of documentation and coding that didn’t reflect increases in patients severity of illness. An excerpt:
“The proposed rule would apply to approximately 3,500 acute care hospitals paid under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS), and approximately 420 long-term care hospitals paid under the Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System (LTCH PPS), beginning with discharges occurring on or after October 1, 2010. Proposed payment rates are based on the most recently available data and may be revised in the final rule to reflect more current data.”
