CMS Hears IPPS Concerns; Final Rules Soon Available
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joins the chorus of people and organizations asking Medicare to reconsider its current plans for Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) reform with this letter. Grassley argues that:
“Although Medicare has proposed these changes for the purpose of improving payment accuracy and, in turn, addressing the financial incentives for the operation of physician-owned specialty hospitals, I have instead urged the agency to implement these major changes concurrently in fiscal year 2008 for several reasons.
First, implementation should be delayed because the proposed changes simply need more work. The government’s proposed methodology, which differs significantly from the methodology recommended by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, has the potential to pay inaccurately for procedures. Also, many stakeholders were unable to review fully and analyze the impact of the proposed rule within the 60-day comment period because information was limited and they didn’t have the necessary tools to evaluate the proposed changes. […]
Second, implementation should be delayed to allow for the concurrent and orderly implementation of both proposed changes. The implementation in fiscal year 2007 of the proposed change to reflect costs better is expected to shift payments significantly from one group of hospitals to another, while the implementation in fiscal year 2008 of the proposed change to recognize differences in severity of illness better will likely shift payments in the other direction. They should be implemented concurrently to avoid the wide swings in hospital payments that each change is expected to cause.”
According to The Hill, CMS Administrator Mark McClellan stated in a letter delivered to Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and other senators on Thursday last week that he had heard the concerns raised by the proposed changes, expressed among other ways in this letter (pdf) sent by Santorum in June. The final version of the rules should be available within days now.
July 26, 2006 Related topics: Legal & legislative, Finance