Budget deal includes big changes for healthcare
Editor's Note The US Congress on February 9 passed a budget deal that will have a significant impact across nearly every sector of the healthcare industry, the March 9 Business Insider reports. Among the initiatives are: $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health $6 billion to combat the opioid…
CMS: Two exercises of emergency operations plan required annually
Editor's Note The Joint Commission reported on January 31 that it had confirmed with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that organizations are required to have two exercises of their emergency operations plan annually. Among the organizations to which the requirement applies are: deemed hospitals critical access hospitals…
Editorial
Uncertainty was the defining characteristic of the healthcare industry in 2017 as regulatory changes were proposed, rejected, revised, or tabled for now. The individual insurance mandate was repealed as part of a year-end tax reform bill—a victory for an administration that favors deregulation, but also a change that is projected…
CMS proposes coverage change for MRI with implanted cardiac devices
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on January 11 issued a proposal to modify its national coverage determination for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to include patients who have implanted cardiac devices. Proposed changes include the expansion of coverage for patients with cardiac devices that are approved or…
CMS announces new voluntary bundled payment model
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on January 9 announced a new voluntary bundled payment model called, “Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced” (BPCI Advanced). Participants in BPCI Advanced will receive payments for performance on 32 (29 inpatient, 3 outpatient) different clinical episodes. The first cohort…
CMS launches new data submission system for Quality Payment Program
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on January 2 that physicians and other eligible clinicians participating in the Quality Payment Program can begin submitting their 2017 performance data using a new system on the Quality Payment Program website (qpp.cms.gov). The new system is an improvement…
CMS updates Hospital Compare site
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced December 21 that it updated data on its Hospital Compare website and will update the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating using a new methodology that will give more hospitals one or five stars. CMS had postponed the release of…
Joint Commission cites 'continuous improvement' as 2018 survey goal
When Medicare and Medicaid legislation was passed and signed into law in 1965, the US Congress formed the precursor federal agency to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to write the rules and regulations spelling out the “Conditions of Participation” (CoPs) required to obtain federal funding under these…
Where are you on the value-based care continuum?
Healthcare providers are straddling a variety of payment models while many regulatory changes remain in flux under the Trump Administration. Although the shift from fee-for-service to value-based payment began some years ago, not everyone is on board. Opinions about bundled payments also remain mixed, despite reports of improved outcomes and…
ASC quality reporting deadlines moved up in 2018
On November 1, 2017, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its final rule for the 2018 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System/ASC Payment System and Quality Reporting Programs. In summary, several ambulatory surgery center (ASC) measures (ASC-1 to ASC-14) are unaffected, except that three measures (ASC-5, -6,…
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