Part B Therapy Cuts Delayed to June 1

As a follow-up to a post from last week regarding pending cuts in Part B therapy rates, last evening the House passed a bill that the Senate had passed earlier in the day, included within is a provision to delay the pending cuts to the physician fee schedule until June 1.  The provision is tucked … Read more

Part B Therapy Rate Reductions Return

With Congress on recess, the temporary extension of the Part B therapy rate cuts ended on March 31.  As of today, with Congress still on “holiday”, the Part B therapy rate cuts remain in effect.  Best knowledge has it that Congress is working on another temporary extension that would retro to April 1 and last through April 30.  … Read more

Health Care Reform Implications: Home Health Care

I’m a tad behind where I hoped to be in terms of getting these posts out.  Its been a bit  busy over the last ten days or so but headed into the Holiday weekend, a break in the schedule affords me the opportunity to “maybe” get caught up. Of all of the industry sectors touched by … Read more

Medpac Report to Congress: 2011

Earlier this week, Medpac (Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission) released its report to Congress.  Primary among Medpac’s duties is its provision of recommendations regarding payment updates under Medicare.  Below, I have broken out and summarized the recommendations. Hospice (the points below the first bullet are continued recommendations from 2009) 2011 rate is the market-basket less a … Read more

Hospital Observation Stays Impacting Medicare SNF Admissions

An issue that I am fielding a fair number of inquiries about lately involves Medicare patients spending more than three days in a hospital, subsequently ‘discharged’ to a SNF and the SNF learning later that the patient was never technically admitted to the hospital.  Mostly, the inquiries I am getting are along the line of “what’s … Read more

CMS Releases Annual Report on Health Spending

Earlier today, CMS released its annual report on national health spending for the year 2008.  In summary, health spending grew at a rate of 4.4% (over 2007), equating to a per capita cost of $7,681 and a total cost of $2.3 trillion.  This rate of growth, per CMS, is the slowest increase since 1960 although … Read more

Health Care Reform: Getting to the Details

Its been about ten days since the House passed its version of health care reform and just now,  it is possible to unwind and assess some of the cost/price details that are buried within the 2,000 page bill.  Similarly, it is also possible for the general public to begin the process of digesting the ramifications … Read more

CMS Releases Hospice Stats

Within the past two weeks, CMS released data from 1998 to 2008 for length of stay and diagnosis trends.  What is interesting to note is the utilization trends (length of stay and numbers) over the period as well as the diagnosis correlated to utilization.  For CMS and in particular MedPAC, the prevailing concern has been … Read more

OIG Reports Published on Hospice

In a post I wrote at the end of July concerning CMS’ 2010 rate announcement and compliance and regulatory trends, I indicated how the OIG was becoming more vigilant in reviewing hospice utilization, lengths of stay and in particular, the correlation between lengths of stay and hospice patients in an SNF.  This past month, in mid-September, the … Read more

Home Health Update

As is/was the case with SNFs and Hospices, CMS and Congress have formulated a series of proposed rules and legislation that reflects the ongoing trend under Medicare of reimbursement reductions.  On July 30 (followed by the August 6th Federal Register publication), CMS announced its proposed rule for FY 2010 for Home Health PPS reimbursement and … Read more