Month / Year

Subject

Category: Physicians

Final Payment Rules – Calendar Year (CY) 2022

November 9, 2021

On November 2, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final rules for Calendar Year (CY) 2022 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS), CY 2022 Physician Fee Schedule, and CY 2022 Home Health PPS.

KEY UPDATES FROM THE CY 2022 OPPS FINAL RULE:

CY 2022 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System Final Rule (CMS-1753-FC).

OPPS & ASC Payment Rates

Both the OPPS and ASC payment rates for hospitals that meet applicable quality reporting requirements will be increased by 2.0 percent (2.7 percent less 0.7 percentage point productivity adjustment.

Price Transparency

Proposed Increase in Civil Monetary Penalties (CMP) for noncompliance will be scaled by bed size (range $109,500 to $2,007,500 per hospital). Smaller hospitals with 30 or fewer beds are subject to a fine equal to $300 per day. Hospitals with a bed count between 31-550 beds are subject to a fine between $310 to $550 per day with a maximum penalty $2,007,500. Hospitals with a bed count of 551 or greater beds, are subject to a fine equal to $2,007,500 per hospital.

CMS is also requiring machine-readable files are accessible for automated searches and direct downloads.

Toyon’s Take

These fines emphasize CMS’s push to provide public access to pricing information.

Use of CY 2019 Claims Data for CY 2022 OPPS/ASC Ratesetting

CMS believes the best available data for projecting expected cost and OPPS/ASC payment derives from calendar year 2019, prior to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). Conventionally, CMS would have used the most recent data (from 2020) for ratesetting.

Toyon’s Take

Toyon recommends providers regularly evaluate CY 2022 OPPS/ASC payments to ascertain the reasonableness of CMS’s projection that CY 2022 cost and volumes will be more reflective of 2019 levels as compared to 2020. When areas of the country “normalize” from COVID-19 PHE, then it is best to use data from prior to the outbreak to project CY 2022 OPPS/ASC payments. Notably, CY 2020 data may not be used in future rates.

Changes to the Medicare Inpatient Only (IPO) List

In CY 2022 CMS will add back all codes to the IPO list, except CPT codes 22630 (Lumbar spine fusion), 23472 (Reconstruct shoulder joint), 27702 (Reconstruct ankle joint) and their corresponding anesthesia codes. Also, the planned elimination of the IPO list will be put on hold until further notice. See this link.

Toyon’s Take

Requiring certain services as inpatient only is a noteworthy change in course from the CY 2021 OPPS/ASC final rule initially eliminating 298 services from the IPO list. CY 2021 was also scheduled to be year one of a three-year process to phase out the entire IPO list. However, CMS listened to stakeholder comments and agrees patient safety is the main concern. Medicare continuously desires to provide their beneficiaries a choice, therefore is using additional time to review procedures and outcomes of IPO services.

OPPS and 340B

CMS is continuing to pay hospitals 22.5 percent less the Average Sales Price (ASP) for select 340B drugs.

Click here for the link to the display copy of the OPPS/ASC final rule; the document is scheduled to be published in the federal register on 11/16/2021.

KEY UPDATES FROM THE CY 2022 PHYSICIAN FEE SCHEDULE FINAL RULE:

CY 2022 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System Final Rule (CMS-1751-F).

Telehealth Expansion for Behavioral Health

The COVID-19 PHE shows gaps in healthcare delivery and the need for technology to treat patients, especially patients located in remote communities. CMS, in this rule, is eliminating barriers and will allow patients to access telehealth services in their homes, for the diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of mental health disorders.

Medicare will also cover mental health visits in Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) through telehealth technologies, including audio only calls.

Increasing Access to Physician Assistants’ (PA) Services

CMS will institute a change that will authorize Medicare to make direct Medicare payments to Physician Assistants (PAs) for professional services they furnish under Part B. Beginning January 1, 2022 PAs are permitted to bill Medicare directly. This change allows greater access to care for Medicare beneficiaries.

Medicare Ground Ambulance Data Collection System

CMS finalized changes to the Medicare Ground Ambulance Data Collection System including:

Finalizing a new data collection period beginning between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2023, and a new data reporting period beginning between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024, for selected ground ambulance organizations in year three;
Revising the timeline for when the payment reduction for failure to report will begin aligning the timelines for the application of penalties for not reporting data; and
Amending to the Medicare Ground Ambulance Data Collection Instrument. This will improve its clarity and make the instrument less burdensome to complete.

Click here for the link to the display copy of the Physician Fee Schedule; the document is scheduled to be published in the federal register on 11/19/2021.

KEY UPDATES FROM THE CY 2022 HOME HEALTH PPS FINAL RULE:

CY 2022 Home Health Prospective Payment System Rate Update Final Rule (CMS-1747-F & CMS-5531-F)

CY 2022 Updates to the Home Health (HH) PPS rates

The final rule updates CY 2022 Medicare Home Health (HH) payment rates by 2.6 percent and uses the latest Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA) delineations as well as the latest available pre-reclassified hospital wage data under the Medicare IPPS.

CY 2022 Updates to Home Health Quality Reporting Program

The Home Health QRP is a program that reports quality data to CMS. All HHAs that do not meet reporting requirements receive a 2-percentage point reduction to their annual market basket percentage update for the respective calendar year. In this final rule the OASIS-based measure is removed as it did not demonstrate any meaningful difference in performance. Two claim-based measures will be replaced with a new measure that surrounding attribution and associated with desired patient outcomes.

CMS is finalizing its proposal that effective January 1, 2023, HHAs begin collecting data on the Transfer of Health Information to Provider-Post Acute Care measure, the Transfer of Health Information to Patient-PAC measure, as well as six categories of standardized patient assessment data elements, to support the coordination of care.

Click here for the link to the display copy of the Home Health PPS update; the document is scheduled to be published in the federal register on 11/9/2021

For questions regarding these rules, please contact Scott.Besler@toyonassociates.com.

OPPS Proposed Rule – CY 2019

July 31, 2018

CMS-1695-P drafted on 7/25/2018; Published in the Federal Register on 7/31/2018

On July 25, 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed changes to ensure that seniors can access the care they need at the site of care that they choose and to lower drug prices as outlined in the President’s Blueprint. The proposed policies in the CY 2019 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System proposed rule would help lay the foundation for a patient-driven healthcare system.

To increase the sustainability of the Medicare program and improve quality of care for seniors, CMS is moving toward site neutral payments for clinic visits (which are essentially check-ups with a clinician). Clinic visits are the most common service billed under the OPPS. Currently, CMS often pays more for the same type of clinic visit in the hospital outpatient setting than in the physician office setting. If finalized, this proposal is projected to save patients about $150 million in lower copayments for clinic visits provided at an off-campus hospital outpatient department. CMS is also proposing to close a potential loophole through which providers are billing patients more for visits in hospital outpatient departments when they create new service lines.

As part of active efforts to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, CMS is issuing a Request for Information to solicit public comment on how best to leverage the authority provided under the Competitive Acquisition Program (CAP) to get a better deal for beneficiaries as part of a CMS Innovation Center model. CMS believes a CAP-based model would allow the program to introduce competition to Medicare Part B, the part of Medicare that pays for medicines that patients receive in a doctor’s office.

In 2018, CMS implemented a payment policy to help beneficiaries save on coinsurance on drugs that were administered at hospital outpatient departments and that were acquired through the 340B program-a program that allows hospitals to buy certain outpatient drugs at a lower cost. Due to CMS’s policy change, Medicare beneficiaries are now benefiting from the discounts that 340B hospitals enjoy when they receive 340B-acquired drugs. In 2018 alone, beneficiaries have saved an estimated $320 million on out-of-pocket payments for these drugs. For 2019, CMS is expanding this policy by proposing to extend the 340B payment change to non-excepted off-campus departments of hospitals that are paid under the Physician Fee Schedule.

CMS is also seeking comment through a Request for Information asking whether providers and suppliers can and should be required to inform patients about charge and payment information for healthcare services and out-of-pocket costs, what data elements would be most useful to promote price shopping, and what other changes are needed to empower healthcare consumers.

Overall, the proposed rule is projected to result in an estimated decrease of $610M (or -0.1%) in payments to providers, ranging from 3.4% decreases for hospitals in the New England region up to 2.1% increases for non-teaching, non-DSH urban hospitals.

For more information regarding this Proposed Rule, see below:

Fact Sheet Link

Federal Register Link

Medicare OPPS Base Rates

CMS is proposing a base rate increase of 1.25% for hospitals that submit OQR quality data and 2.0% for ASCs that submit ASCQR quality data.

APC Changes

As expected, CMS is proposing weighting changes to APC weights for CY2019, along with new APC codes and new HCPCS codes. Below is a listing of the largest changes in weighting between CY2018 and CY2019 APCs:

Click here for a table of the full APC weighting comparison between CY2018 and CY2019.

Click here for a table of the new HCPCS codes effective 7/1/2018.

Other APC Changes

CMS has proposed to create three new comprehensive APCs (C-APCs) for ears, nose, and throat (ENT) and vascular procedures. CMS also proposes to remove two procedures from the inpatient-only list and add one procedure to the list.

Click here for a table of the changes to the inpatient-only procedures.

Changes to Quality Reporting

CMS is proposing several changes to the Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) in an effort to reduce burdens on hospitals, including the removal of 10 measures from the OQR (1 from CY2020 and 9 from CY2021). CMS also proposes to remove the three recently revised pain communication questions, starting with services on Jan. 1, 2022, to address concerns that providers might feel pressure to offer opioids in order to raise survey scores.

Click here for a table of the 10 OQR measures proposed to be removed.

Click here for a table of the 26 OQR measures required for CY 2020 and here for a table of the 15 ASCQR measures required for CY2020.

Off-Campus Payment Policy Changes

CMS remains concerned with the shift of services from freestanding physician offices to hospital provider-based departments (PBDs). As a result, they are proposing several significant changes that will negatively impact OPPS reimbursement for these facilities:

Expansion of PFS Rate for All Clinic Visits: CMS will extend the reduced Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) rate for clinic visits (HCPCS code G0463) to all off-campus PBDs, even those excepted under Section 603. (Note: The PFS payment rate is approximately 40% less than the OPPS rate.)CMS estimates that the impact of this change is expected to reduce reimbursement to hospitals by $760M.

Restricting “Clinical Families of Services”: CMS is also proposing to require that if an excepted off-campus PBD furnishes services from any clinical family of services from which it did not furnish and bill during the period from 11/1/2014 to 11/1/2015, such items and services would be paid at the reduced PFS rate applied to non-excepted off-campus PBDs. New items or services within a clinical family of service would continue to be paid under OPPS, as this would be considered a “service expansion.” For mid-build providers, CMS proposes a 1-year baseline period beginning on the first date the off-campus PBD furnished the service under OPPS.

Click here for a table of the clinical families of services.

New “ER” Modifier: Finally, CMS also plans to require a new “ER” modifier to identify services in off-campus ER departments. This is meant to address the MedPAC recommendation for CMS to assess the extent to which OPPS services are shifting to off-campus ER departments. (Critical access hospitals would be exempt from this reporting requirement.)

Changes to Drug Payment Policy

In response to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, CMS proposes to change the packaging policy for certain drugs. CMS is also proposing to change the payment for separately payable drugs for non-excepted off-campus PBDs to the same lower ASP minus 22.5% (or 77.5% of ASP) that excepted off-campus PBDs receive. Currently these non-excepted departments receive 106% of ASP for these drugs. SCHs, Children’s, and Cancer hospitals would be exempt.

Click here for a table of the drugs and biologicals with pass-through status expiring on 12/31/2018.

CMS Request for Information

CMS is seeking feedback as to how providers may safely and effectively transition EHR among other providers and thereby improve interoperability.

CMS is also interested in continuing the discussion as to how hospitals might improve access to charge information across providers in order to help patients understand their financial liability, including out-of-pocket costs.

Finally, CMS is soliciting comments on key designs for developing a potential model that would test private market strategies and introduce competition to improve quality of care for beneficiaries, while reducing both Medicare expenditures and beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket spending. They are seeking feedback that would accelerate the move to a value-based healthcare system building upon the Competitive Acquisition Program (CAP) for Part B drugs.

For additional information, please contact Ron Knapp at ron.knapp@toyonassociates.com.

Other Recently Published Proposed Rules

CY 2019 HHA PPS Proposed Rule [CMS-1689-P]

(FR Publish Date 7/12/2018)

Fact Sheet Link

Federal Register Link

Expected 2.1% increase in payments to HHAs in CY 2019
Rural add-on payment extended for CYs 2019 through 2022 with new methodology
Cost of remote patient monitoring will be allowable costs on the Medicare cost report

CY 2019 ESRD PPS and DMEPOS Proposed Rule [CMS-1691-P]

[FR Publish Date 7/19/2018)

Fact Sheet Link

Federal Register Link

Proposed ESRD
Updates to ESRD QIP measures and codifying several previously finalized requirements
Changes to the DMEPOS Competitive Bidding Program (CBP)

Physician Fee Schedule, Quality Programs, and Medicaid Interoperability Proposed Rule [CMS-1693-P]

(FR Publish Date 7/27/2018)

Fact Sheet Link

Federal Register Link

Updates to PFS RVUs, including an increase in the conversion factor of 0.13% to $36.0463
Elimination of payment distinction and documentation requirements E&M visit levels 2
through 5
50% multiple procedure payment adjustment when E&M visits and procedures with global periods are furnished together
Moving forward with Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) using a Clinical Decision Support Mechanism (CDSM)
>Effective 1/1/2020, physicians and other practitioners who order advance diagnostic
imaging must consult with AUC and report the consultation information on the claims.

Final Rule – Physician Fee Schedule/Other Part B Revisions – CY2017

November 2, 2016

From: Federal Register CMS-1654-F; Filed 11/2/16; Published 11/15/16

SUMMARY:

This major final rule addresses changes to the physician fee schedule and other Medicare Part B payment policies, such as changes to the Value Modifier, to ensure that our payment systems are updated to reflect changes in medical practice and the relative value of services, as well as changes in the statute. This final rule also includes changes related to the Medicare Shared Savings Program, requirements for Medicare Advantage Provider Networks, and provides for the release of certain pricing data from Medicare Advantage bids and of data from medical loss ratio reports submitted by Medicare health and drug plans. In addition, this final rule expands the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program model.

Click here to view the CMS newsroom release.

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