The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced a final rule establishing Medicare payment and policy changes for services in hospital outpatient departments for calendar year 2009. The changes in the final rule, effective on January 1, will apply to outpatient services furnished by more than 4,000 hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) in general acute care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, inpatient psychiatric facilities, long-term acute care hospitals, community mental health centers, children’s hospitals, and cancer hospitals.
CMS projects that total Medicare payment for Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) will be $30.1 billion during CY 2009, compared with projected payment of $28.5 billion in CY 2008. But the annual OPPS payment inflation update will be reduced by 2.0 percentage points for certain hospitals that do not meet quality reporting requirements. The financial impact of the final rule may reduce or increase reimbursement rates depending on their mix of services and current charging practices.
“In this final rule, we are continuing to pay appropriately for care while working with health care providers as we look for ways to make sure beneficiaries who come in for treatment of one complaint don’t leave with two as a result of adverse events during their outpatient visits,” said CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems.
If your organization receives Medicare reimbursement for outpatient services, be prepared for the operational and financial impact on your organization!
Join Healthcare Reimbursement Monitor and the reimbursement and coding experts of Deloitte & Touche to get a better understanding of the new Medicare changes for OPPS and how it will impact your organization in this special 90-minute audio conference that took place in December 2008.
Listen in to this program with your staff members for a comprehensive review of the Medicare CY 2009 Outpatient Prospective Payment System final rule, focusing on the critical changes and updates that affect your hospital’s revenue. All areas discussed will focus on both coding and reimbursement impacts.
- The new 2008 HCPCS/CPT and Ambulatory Payment
Classifications (APC) code deletions, additions, and changes including
- Expansion of Packaging and composite APCs
- Composite APCs for multiple imaging services
- New APCs for certain Type B emergency department visits
- Reduction in separately payable drug APC payments
- Transitional pass-through payments
- Payments for drugs, biologicals and radiopharmaceuticals
- Impact of status indicator Q plus packaging
- Identify OPPS areas that have remained constant between 2008 and 2009
- New quality measures required to be reported
- Validation of quality reporting with 50 randomly selected records
- Healthcare-associated conditions
- Drugs and pharmacy overhead
- Change for partial hospitalization services, including services provided by CMHCs
- The reimbursement impact of the changes
- Question and answer session
Who Will Benefit From This Audio Webcast?
CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CNO, vice president of finance, director of reimbursement, patient financial services, chargemaster coordinators, coding supervisors, revenue cycle coordinators, financial planners, health information management, vice president of operations, strategic and implementation consultants, operations executives, executive directors, team leaders, planners, product managers, knowledge managers, department heads, medical directors, director of managed care, director of contracting, network development and provider services directors, strategic planners, healthcare management, TPAs, network managers, company executives, medical management directors, analysts, account services and administration executives.
©2008 Health Resources Publishing