Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has awarded a grant entitled, ``Cost-Effective and Scalable Strategies for Enrolling Medicare Beneficiaries in Medicare Prescription Drug Extra Help'' to The National Council on the Aging, 300 D Street, SW., Suite 801, Washington, DC 20024, in response to an unsolicited proposal. The period of performance is March 1, 2006 through February 28, 2007 (Year 1). The applicant proposes to use private-public partnerships to support a five-year strategy of identifying and enrolling eligible beneficiaries through a series of tailored, list-driven intervention approaches already known to be effective in Low-Income Subsidy (LIS) enrollment. The National Council on the Aging (NCOA) is partnering with Benefits Data Trust (BDT) to lead this list-driven intervention research project. They have already received private funds which they plan to award in grants to support test interventions for the proposed study. NCOA expects to test 24-30 intervention approaches over a five- year period. The NCOA team is soliciting CMS cooperation and support to accomplish two objectives critical to the success of the interventions. First, the proposed project will facilitate an ongoing partnership between NCOA and CMS to refine marketing lists by identifying beneficiaries already enrolled in the Medicare Part D Low-Income Subsidy (LIS) or Medicaid. This will allow BDT to create the ``cleanest'' list possible of potential LIS- eligibles. BDT reported that use of similarly refined lists for outreach efforts to low income populations has increased the enrollment success rate, and decreased the cost of enrollment. Secondly, NCOA is seeking CMS funding to evaluate alternative, list-based outreach strategies. NCOA intends to partner with L&M Policy Research for the evaluation of intervention approaches. In addition, NCOA will rely on Bridgespan to be an advisor for cost-effectiveness studies. Evaluation of these approaches could supplement existing market research knowledge, and be useful for quality improvement of ongoing and future beneficiary outreach efforts for LIS.

This notice announces an administrative hearing to be held on April 13, 2006, at the Richard Bolling Federal Building, 601 E. 12th Street, Room 235, Kansas City Conference Room, Kansas City, MO 64106- 2898, to reconsider CMS' decision to disapprove Iowa State plan amendment 05- 003. Closing Date: Requests to participate in the hearing as a party must be received by the presiding officer by March 13, 2006.

In this final notice we respond to public comments on our September 30, 2005 notice with comment period and announce our decision concerning an application submitted by Advanced Medical Optics (AMO) to adjust the Medicare payment amounts for certain intraocular lenses (IOLs) on the basis that they are new technology intraocular lenses (NTIOLs). This is the third of three statutorily required Federal Register documents. On May 27, 2005, we published a notice in the Federal Register entitled ``Medicare Program; Calendar Year 2005 Review of the Appropriateness of Payment Amounts for New Technology Intraocular Lenses (NTIOLs) Furnished by Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs)'' (70 FR 30731) that solicited interested parties to submit requests for review of the appropriateness of the payment amount for an IOL furnished by an ambulatory surgical center. On September 30, 2005, we published a notice with comment period entitled ``Medicare Program; Calendar Year 2005 Review of the Appropriateness of Payment Amounts for New Technology Intraocular Lenses (NTIOLs) Furnished by Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs)'' (70 FR 57297) acknowledging timely receipt of one application. In this final notice, we announce our decision to approve the NTIOL application submitted by Advanced Medical Optics (AMO) for Tecnis[supreg] (model numbers Z9000, Z9001, and Z9003).

This notice announces a Town Hall meeting on our methodology for establishing practice expense (PE) values for services paid under the physician fee schedule (PFS). The purpose of this meeting is to: (1) Clarify our proposed revisions to the PE methodology contained in the PFS calendar year (CY) 2006 proposed rule; and (2) receive comments and opinions from individuals of the medical community regarding ideas for the CY 2007 PFS proposed rule. This meeting is open to the public, but attendance is limited to space available.