ACloserLook Reimbursement Issues in Diagnostic Imaging

2009 Proposed HIPPS Rules Released

On April 14, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (HIPPS) proposed rule for fiscal year 2009. Overall, the proposed rule is estimated to increase Medicare payments to acute care hospitals by nearly $4.0 billion. In the rule, CMS announced a mandated market-basket update of 3.0% for hospitals that report data for 30 selected quality measures. Hospitals not submitting data would receive a 1.0% update.
The rule proposes to expand the number of required quality measures to 73 in FY 2010. CMS also proposes several changes to the method used to compute the hospital wage index. Comments on the proposed rule will be accepted until June 13.

The proposed rule is posted at: http://tiny.cc/YM9jL

Press Release:
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/press_releases.asp

3 Quality Fact Sheets and Exec Summary Fact Sheet 4/14/08:
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/fact_sheets.asp

Spring 2008 Newsletter


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