If your hospital did not receive a full Medicare annual payment update based on CMS's determination that you failed to submit required quality data, be aware that the deadline for appealing this decision is getting close.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a list of over 150 acute care hospitals that will not receive their full Medicare annual payment update for federal fiscal year (FFY) 2008 as a result of CMS' determinations that the hospitals failed to comply with the requirements of the Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) program. Under the RHQDAPU program, hospitals must submit data for specific quality measures relating to health conditions which are common to

Medicare beneficiaries and which typically result in hospitalization. The hospital quality reporting initiative, which was initially enacted as part of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 and later revised by Section 5001(a) of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, began as a voluntary reporting initiative, but participation and compliance is now

mandatory for hospitals to avoid a reduction in their inpatient prospective payment system annual payment update.

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