Medicare Releases Proposed 2010 ASC Payment Rates - On July 1, 2009, the Ohio ASC Association reported that CMS released its proposed 2010 Medicare ASC payment rates and policies. According to initial reviews, CMS is proposing an annual inflation update of 0.6% (based on CPI-U) and is again not proposing to require ASC quality reporting in 2010. More details will be coming in future days once a thorough review can be completed. The OAASC as a part of the national ASC coalition will be submitting comments on the proposed rates, especially the linking of ASC rate increases to CPI-U as opposed to the "health care market basket" like other providers. Click here to view the CMS proposal.
Proposed Rule Eliminates Consults - CMS is also proposing to stop making payment for consultation codes, which are typically billed by specialists and are paid at a higher rate than equivalent evaluation and management (E/M) services. Practitioners will use existing E/M service codes when providing these services instead. Resulting savings would be redistributed to increase payments for the existing E/M services.
CMS Releases 2010 Proposed Physician Fee Schedule - The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2010 Medicare proposed physician fee schedule earlier this month with a related press release and fact sheet. The regulation includes provisions that confirm a 21.5 percent reduction in 2010 Medicare physician payments unless Congress enacts legislation to reverse this cut. As a news item from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), the regulation also proposes to “remove physician-administered drugs from the definition of “physician services” for purposes of computing the physician update formula in anticipation of enactment of legislation to provide fundamental reforms to Medicare physician payments,” which has long been advocated by MGMA.
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