The CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Rules
Podcast — Drug Pricing: How Are Payers Responding to the IRA?
Findings from Gibbins’ Annual Healthcare Bankruptcy Report
A Fond Farewell: Musings on the End of the Medicare Advantage Hospice Carve-In Demonstration
Video: Braidwood v. Becerra – Challenging the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Coverage Provision – Thought Leaders in Health Law
Hospice and Home Health Survey Perspectives: A Conversation with Kim Skehan, VP of Accreditation at CHAP
Transparency and the Open Payments Program
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Video Podcast | Episode 173: Improving rural health care with Dr. Kevin Bennett, the Director of the Research Center for Transforming Health and the
Counsel That Cares - The Private Payer's Perspective on Value-Based Care
Podcast: Health Equity – Behind the Buzzwords – Diagnosing Health Care
A Very “Special” Episode: Amid Controversy, CMS Launches the Hospice Special Focus Program
Grace from CMS: Unexpected Good News on HIS and CAHPS Appeals
This Bandwagon Has a Broken Wheel: OIG Joins the Inconsistent Approach to Hospice GIP Claims
Behind the Curtain: Enhanced Provider Enrollment Oversight
Survey Woes: CMS Ramps Up Hospice Survey Program and Consequences
Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What Now? – Diagnosing Health Care Podcast
A Glimpse Into the Other Side: Understanding the Perspective of Government Enforcers
I Understood There Would Be No Math: Audits, Extrapolations, and a New Set of Rules
Podcast: Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What’s Next? - Diagnosing Health Care
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Calendar Year (CY) 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Final Rule on Nov. 1, 2022, which impacts Medicare Part B payments starting on Jan. 1, 2023....more
CMS recently announced updates and milestones for several programs run by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). CMMI is the internal CMS agency responsible for developing and testing new health care payment...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that it has several “prevailing concerns” regarding the accuracy of the 2017 Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) scoring data that was used to set...more
CMS recently announced that it wants to launch a new demonstration program, the Medicare Advantage Qualifying Payment Arrangement Incentive (MAQI) Demonstration. If approved and adopted as a demonstration project, the MAQI...more
In March, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) released its biannual report to Congress on matters affecting the Medicare program. MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues...more
• Congress amended current law to prevent CMS from applying the “MIPS” payment adjustment to separately billed items like drugs and biologics, which will drastically reduce the total amount of payment adjustments to clinical...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is launching BPCI Advanced – the successor program to the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. Providers that like the current BPCI program, or simply missed the...more
On January 9, 2018, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new voluntary bundled payment model program – Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI Advanced). The episode payment model, which...more
On January 9, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new voluntary bundled-payment demonstration program, also known as Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Advanced. The new model will test...more
If the 2017 healthcare environment could be summed up in one word, it would be “uncertainty.” With the largely unexpected election of Donald Trump as President, the multiple, unsuccessful attempts by the Republican controlled...more
CMS recently issued guidance on the three-part “Prevention of Information Blocking” attestation which physicians and other eligible clinicians will need to submit to CMS in order to qualify for points under the “Advancing...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Nov. 1, 2017, released the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and the Medicare Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System Final Rule for...more
With all the discussion lately about trying to manage the cost of healthcare, what are the most important recent changes in reimbursement methodology and strategies which Patient First has seen in the market? The ongoing...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) simplified the process for clinicians and other providers to seek the Quality Payment Program (QPP) Hardship exception by releasing an online application on Aug. 2....more
Summer was no vacation for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The agency released a series of significant rules that signal the nature and pace of CMS Medicare payment and policy changes for hospitals and...more
In April 2015, Congress established a new framework for Medicare Part B physician payments through the passage of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (“MACRA”), which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...more
CMS recently proposed modified policies for continued implementation of the Quality Payment Program (QPP) in the 2017 Proposed Rule. Among other things, the Proposed Rule provides flexibility for clinicians in the second QPP...more
Payment models that seek to reward physicians, hospitals and other health care providers for achieving certain quality and cost-saving goals, or “value-based purchasing” (VBP), are not new to the healthcare landscape,...more
On June 20, 2017, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released a proposed rule which would exempt a greater number of small practices from complying with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of...more
In October 2016, CMS issued a Final Rule for the new physician payment system under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). MACRA replaced the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) with a new...more
On June 20, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule entitled, "Medicare Program; CY 2018 Updates to the Quality Payment Program." CMS proposes changes for the second year (2018) of the...more
Healthcare is still buzzing about CMS’s Medicare physician two-track payment system, MACRA. The Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is a complex pay-for-performance system based on traditional fee-for-service (FFS)....more
With all the talk of the Affordable Care Act’s uncertain future, it is easy to forget about the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (“MACRA”), a bipartisan law passed by Congress in 2015 to change the way physicians...more
As you may have read, accountable care organizations have met uneven success over the last several years. But, when they are broken down into categories, physician-sponsored ACOs have done better, particularly those with a...more
On November 14, 2016, CMS published its final rule implementing the physician payment provisions of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (“MACRA”). The rule became effective January 1, 2017. Data collection from...more