CMS' final inpatient payment rule for 2020: 8 things to know

1. Acute care hospitals that report quality data and are meaningful users of EHRs will receive a 3.1 percent increase in Medicare rates in fiscal year 2020, compared to fiscal 2019.
2. CMS projects the rate increase, together with other changes to inpatient payment policies, will boost total IPPS payments by roughly $3.8 billion.
3. CMS will distribute nearly $8.4 billion in DSH payments in fiscal 2020, an increase of approximately $78 million from fiscal 2019.
4. CMS will increase the maximum add-on payment for new technology, including CAR-T cancer therapy, from 50 percent of estimated costs to 65 percent.
5. In a statement, American Hospital Association Executive Vice President Tom Nickels said the AHA is pleased CMS increased the add-on payment rate.
6. CMS will increase the wage index for hospitals with a wage index value below the 25th percentile. The agency will adjust the standardized amounts for all hospitals to make this policy budget neutral.
7. CMS finalized changes to the "rural floor" calculation, which requires the wage index values for urban hospitals to be no lower than the wage index values for rural hospitals in the same state.
8. "It appears that hospitals in a limited number of states have used urban to rural hospital reclassifications to inappropriately influence the rural floor wage index value," CMS said in a fact sheet.

Source: Becker's Hospital Review
Source URL: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/cms-final-inpa...

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendmore...