Department of Veterans Affairs February 13, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document proposes to amend the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical regulations concerning ``reasonable charges'' for medical care or services provided or furnished by VA to certain veterans for nonservice-connected disabilities. We propose to change the process for determining interim billing charges when a new Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) code or Current Procedure Terminology/ Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (CPT/HCPCS) code identifier is assigned to a particular type or item of medical care or service and VA has not yet established a charge for the new identifier. This process is designed to provide interim billing charges that are very close to what the new billing charges would be when the charges for the new identifiers are established in accordance with the regulations. We also propose to change the regulations by removing all of the provisions for discounts of billed charges. This is expected to reduce or eliminate duplicate discounting and thereby prevent unintended underpayments to the government.