Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized the calendar year (CY) 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS), the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS), and the Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System

3 Responses

1. Dr. Anonymous, on November 3, 2018 at 11:24 PM said:

   CMS Delays E/M Coding Changes in New Physician Payment Rule

   Physicians hoping the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would modify some proposed changes to evaluation and management (E/M) codes got their wish Thursday when the agency issued its final Physician Fee Schedule rule for 2019. On Thursday, CMS’ Seema Verma said the agency had tempered its initial approach.

   “After listening to the concerns of the provider community, we will maintain a separate level of payment for the most complex patient care — that’s level 5 — and we are also assigning equal value to add-on codes for primary and specialty care,” Verma said.

   Essentially, CMS will ultimately adopt a three-code approach to E/M reimbursement in place of the proposed two codes, and the agency won’t implement the new structure until 2021.

   Source: Shannon Firth, Medpage Today [11/2/18]

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2. Dr. David E. Marcinko MBA, on February 9, 2019 at 3:22 PM said:

   UNCLE SAM

   Federal law has fundamentally made it illegal to provide pro-bono care to Medicaid or Medicare patients.

   Dr. David E. Marcinko MBA

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3. Dr. David E. Marcinko MBA, on June 27, 2020 at 3:35 PM said:

   CMS Announces Creation of Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics

   The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced the creation of the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics to unify the agency’s efforts to reduce regulatory and administrative burden and to further the goal of putting patients first. The new office is an outgrowth of the agency’s Patients over Paperwork (PoP) Initiative, which is the cornerstone of CMS’ ongoing efforts to implement President Trump’s 2017 executive order to “Cut the Red Tape” and eliminate duplicative, unnecessary, and excessively costly requirements and regulations.

   The new office will also increase the number of clinicians, providers, and health plans the Agency engages, to ensure that CMS has a better understanding of how various regulatory burdens impact healthcare delivery. Stakeholder feedback is critical to addressing provider and clinician burden, as it helps CMS to remove or modify outdated regulations that impede innovation, ultimately resulting in improvements in healthcare delivery.

   Source: CMS Newsroom [6/23/20]

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