On June 25, 2010, President Obama signed into law the “Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010.” This law establishes a 2.2 percent update to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) payment rates retroactive from June 1 through November 30, 2010. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...
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FFS
2.2 Percent Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Update Through Nov 30, 2010
Medicare billings now reported on federal Web site
By KEVIN FREKING THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON – To help Americans become smarter health care shoppers, Medicare this month started publishing a range of what it pays for 30 common procedures and report how frequently hospitals perform them. The release of the information fits with the Bush administration’s strategy of moving more people into...
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Surprise CMS Move Will Cost Hospitals for Multiple Push Injections of Same Drug
AISHealth and the 3/6/06 Report on Medicare Compliance are reporting Hospitals are about to lose money for intravenous push injections because of a surprise move by CMS, experts say. CMS said recently that hospitals can’t charge Medicare for more than one IV push injection of the same drug during the same patient encounter (HCPCS...
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MEDICARE EXPANDS NATIONAL COVERAGE FOR BARIATRIC SURGERY PROCEDURES
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today that it is expanding Medicare’s national coverage of bariatric surgery for all Medicare beneficiaries. For seniors, who have experienced high complication rates in some settings, Medicare will cover the procedure only in high-volume centers that achieve low mortality rates. DOWNLOAD COMPLETE PRESS RELEASE
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National Provider Identifier – Subparts
Implementation of the National Provider Identifier(NPI) is moving forward. We should stay on top of the current implementation calendar and recent CMS guidance. Here is a link to the CMS site where there is a letter clarifying CMSs expectations on determining subparts to covered entities who should bill CMS using unique NPIs. Here is...
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Medicare and Pay For Performance
P4P is already on its way and most organizations that manage Medicare lines of businesses are not preparing for the changes in data collection and reporting. Here is a good article outlining the P4P programs already in demonstration with CMS and where they are headed. Now is the time for us to pay attention...
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Medicare | MedPAC Votes To Adopt Final Medicare Payment Recommendations for 2007
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission on Tuesday voted to adopt several final recommendations to Congress for fiscal year 2007, including a plan to increase Medicare hospital inpatient and outpatient payments by the market basket increase minus 0.45%, CQ HealthBeat reports. The recommendation would result in a payment increase of 3.55% for inpatient care, with...
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CMS MAKES FIRST AWARDS TO FFS MEDICARE ADMINISTRATIVE CONTRACTORS
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today that it has awarded contracts for four specialty contractors who will be responsible for handling the administration of Medicare claims from suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics and orthotics. The new contracts awarded represent a first step in CMS’ initiatives designed to improve service...
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The Great Alaskan Provider Payment Ends
As reported in Managed Care Matters, Alaska’s Sen Ted Stevens (R) engineered a two year $53 Million test by increasing the Medicare provider reimbursements that ended 12/31/2005. The purpose of the program was to see if increasing the provider reimbursement would motivate providers to accept more patients. It appears the program has come to...
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CMS Launches FFS Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey
Another result of the MMA 2003 is the Medicare Contractor Provider Satisfaction Survey. CMS is going to measure how good a job the 42 contractors paying over $280 Billion in claims a year are doing… “The MCPSS will query 25,000 randomly selected providers (e.g., physicians, suppliers, healthcare practitioners, and institutional providers), a statistically valid...
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