April 27, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We are proposing to revise the Medicare hospital inpatient prospective payment systems (IPPS) for operating and capital-related costs of acute care hospitals to implement changes arising from our continuing experience with these systems for FY 2017. Some of the proposed changes would implement certain statutory provisions contained in the Pathway for Sustainable Growth (SGR) Reform Act of 2013, the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014, the Notice of Observation Treatment and Implications for Care Eligibility Act of 2015, and other legislation. We also are providing the estimated market basket update to apply to the rate-of-increase limits for certain hospitals excluded from the IPPS that are paid on a reasonable cost basis subject to these limits for FY 2017. We are proposing to update the payment policies and the annual payment rates for the Medicare prospective payment system (PPS) for inpatient hospital services provided by long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) for FY 2017. In addition, we are proposing to make changes relating to direct graduate medical education (GME) and indirect medical education (IME) payments to hospitals with rural track training programs. We are proposing to establish new requirements or revise requirements for quality reporting by specific providers (acute care hospitals, PPS- exempt cancer hospitals, LTCHs, and inpatient psychiatric facilities) that are participating in Medicare, including related provisions for eligible hospitals and critical care hospitals (CAHs) participating in the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program. We are proposing to update policies relating to the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, and the Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program. We also are proposing to: Implement statutory provisions that require hospitals and CAHs to furnish notification to Medicare beneficiaries, including Medicare Advantage enrollees, when the beneficiaries receive outpatient observation services for more than 24 hours; announce the implementation of the Frontier Community Health Integration Project Demonstration; and make technical corrections and changes to regulations relating to costs to organizations and Medicare cost reports.