On April 30, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that would update fiscal year (FY) 2015 Medicare payment policies and rates for inpatient stays at general acute care and long-term care hospitals (LTCHs).
CMS projects that the payment rate update to general acute care hospitals will be 1.3 percent in FY 2015. The rate update for long term care hospitals will be 0.8 percent. The difference in the update is accounted for by different statutory and regulatory provisions that apply to each system.
The rule’s most significant changes are payment provisions intended to improve the quality of hospital care that reduce payment for readmissions, and hospital acquired conditions (HACs). The rule also includes proposed changes to the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program. The rule also describes how hospitals can comply with the Affordable Care Act’s requirements to disclose charges for their services online or in response to a request, supporting price transparency for patients and the public.
For more information on the payment and quality provisions in the proposed IPPS/LTCH PPS rule, go to:
Payments: http://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2014-Fact-sheets-items/2014-04-30.html
Quality Fact Sheet: http://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2014-Fact-sheets-items/2014-04-30-2.html
CMS will accept comments on the proposed rule until June 30, 2014, and will respond to comments in a final rule to be issued by August 1, 2014. The proposed rule will publish soon in the Federal Register and can be downloaded from the Federal Register at http://ofr.gov/inspection.aspx .