At 11:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 14, Congress passed the Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), which effectively eliminated the more than 17-year battle over cuts to physician reimbursement associated with the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR).Read More »
$2.3 billion. That’s what the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) earned back from healthcare fraud judgments and settlements in fiscal year 2014, according to a March 19 report.Read More »
In January, CMS sent the Stage 3 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to the Office of Management and Budget, which is the final stop for proposed rules that must be federally reviewed prior to their release. CMS representatives...Read More »
Quality. It’s been CMS’ mantra over the past few years.
Traditionally, the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) final rule’s release marked changes in MS-DRG assignment, creation of new ICD codes, and payment and regulatory measures.
Such items essentially vanished of late...Read More »
Three university hospitals saw a doubling of Recovery Auditor (RAC) audit activity from 2010–2011 to 2012–2013, and a nearly three-fold increase in overpayment determinations, according to a new study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.Read More »
For calendar years (CYs) 2010 and 2011, Medicare paid hospitals $711 million for claims that included a diagnosis code for Kwashiorkor, a form of severe protein malnutrition typically found in third-world countries that is extremely rare in the United States.Read More »
Medicare’s Value-Based Purchasing ties reimbursement to quality measures, assessing criteria such as mortality, patient satisfaction, and other items.Read More »
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced last week plans to ramp up Medicare payment reforms featuring alternative payment models and value-based payments.Read More »
