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On April 27, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the proposed rule for the fiscal year 2022 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS). The IPPS Proposed Rule contained a number of changes to payment rates and policies for hospitals, including significant modifications to the Promoting Interoperability Program requirements.
The IPPS Proposed Rule would require hospitals to report on all four measures under the Public Health and Clinical Data Exchange objective, rather than the previous pick-and-choose option. Specifically, hospitals would have to report on Syndromic Surveillance Reporting, Immunization Registry Reporting, Electronic Case Reporting and Electronic Reportable Laboratory Result Reporting. CMS explained that requiring reporting on all four measures “would enable nationwide syndromic surveillance for early warning of emerging outbreaks and threats; automated case and laborator
Electronic Reportable Laboratory Result Reporting. Requiring hospitals to report these four measures would help to prepare public health agencies to respond to future health threats and a long-term COVID-19 recovery by strengthening public health functions, including early warning surveillance, case surveillance and vaccine uptake, which will increase the information available to help hospitals better serve their patients, said CMS officials.
The new requirements would enable nationwide syndromic surveillance that could help provide early notices of emerging disease outbreaks, according to CMS.
Additionally, automated case and lab reporting would speed response times for public health agencies, while broader and more granular visibility into immunization uptake patterns would help these agencies tailor their vaccine distribution plans.
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On April 27, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the 2022 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Proposed Rule for Acute Care Hospitals. The IPPS Proposed Rule contains a number of proposals related to hospitals and the Medicare program some payment-related and others policy-related. Several of the proposals are highlighted below.
Price transparency
While CMS has not thrown out the entire price transparency rule, it is proposing to repeal the requirement it finalized last year that hospitals report the payer-specific rates for inpatient services they negotiate with Medicare Advantage plans on their cost reports. CMS estimates that repealing just this part of the price transparency requirement will reduce administrative burden on hospitals by approximately 64,000 hours.
CMS’s new rule proposal increases payment rates, focuses on health equity and workforce
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The rule touches on a wide range of issues which are detailed below.
Payment rates & transparency requirements:
The rule proposes increasing operating payment rates for acute care hospitals paid under the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) by 2.8%.
“This reflects the projected hospital market basket update of 2.5 percent reduced by a 0.2 percentage point productivity adjustment and increased by a 0.5 percentage point adjustment required by legislation.”
The rules stipulates that the 2.8% rate increase is for hospitals that participate in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program and are “meaningful electronic health record users.”
(Photo by Alex Wong\Getty Images)
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has updated the Medicare fee-for-service payment rates and policies for inpatient hospitals and long-term care hospitals for 2022.
Before taking into account Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments and Medicare uncompensated care payments, the proposed increase in operating payment rates, increases in capital payments, increases in payments for new medical technologies, increases in payments due to implementation of the imputed floor and other proposed changes will increase hospital payments in FY 2022 by $3.4 billion, or 2.8%.
But there is much in the proposed rule beyond payment updates.
The proposed rule would require hospitals to report vaccination rates among healthcare staff. CMS is proposing the adoption of the COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage among Healthcare Personnel Measure to require hospitals to report COVID-19 vaccinations of workers in their facilities.