On August 7, 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS” or the “Agency”) issued a final procedural notice (“Notice”) outlining a new Medicare coverage pathway, aimed at achieving timelier and predictable access...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final procedural notice on Transitional Coverage for Emerging Technologies (TCET), effective as of August 12, 2024. TCET is a new pathway that uses existing...more
Obtaining Medicare coverage and reimbursement for medical devices is notoriously more difficult than for drugs or biologics, and any progress on expanding coverage pathways has been agonizingly slow for industry stakeholders....more
On June 28, 2024, SCOTUS overturned the long-standing Chevron doctrine in its decision Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. The Court’s ruling will have a significant impact on...more
House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Holds Legislative Hearing on 19 Bills. Lawmakers discussed 19 pieces of legislation designed to support patients and caregivers in the key areas of autism, heart defects,...more
Congress is on its way to extending the stop-gap funding bills into March (and may have already done so by the time you read this). Absent from the legislation to continue funding the federal government is a “doc fix” that...more
On July 10, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposed rule (Proposed Rule) that would (i) include hospices in the 36-month rule ownership transfer restrictions that currently exist for home...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued a long-awaited Notice with Comment Period outlining a proposed Transitional Coverage for Emerging Technologies (TCET) pathway under Medicare that would be...more
On June 27, 2023, CMS hosted a Special Open Door Forum regarding its Review Choice Demonstration program for Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Services (IRFs). CMS has stated that the Medicare IRF benefit continues to...more
With the Medicare Comprehensive Error Rate Testing program projected error rate for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) showing a significant increase in 2022 (15.1%, up from 7.9% in 2021), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid...more
On May 19, 2023, Novitas Solutions and First Coast Options sent an email to certain interested parties, with whom they had engaged following the multijurisdictional contractor advisory committee (CAC) meeting explaining that...more
In what passes for neon lights in the regulatory world, CMS said Medicare Advantage (MA) plans must follow the two-midnight rule, its case-by-case exception and the inpatient-only (IPO) list, according to the final 2024 rule...more
Editor’s Note: We are excited to announce that this article is the first of a series addressing Medicare Part B’s “incident to” billing requirements, designed to give practical guidance and orientation to health care...more
Because Medicare and Medicaid claims audit requests can look like routine billing-related correspondence, they can be easy to miss, leading to expensive and potentially catastrophic consequences. Providers, therefore, should...more
This month, OIG published its findings relating to its audit on providers who sought reimbursement from Medicare for bad debts. OIG conducted the audit to confirm whether: (a) providers complied with Federal requirements...more
On December 19, 2022, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled, “Medicare: CMS Needs to Address Risks Posed by Provider Enrollment Waivers and Flexibilities” (GAO-23-105494). The report...more
The initial article on this subject discussed generally why Medicare providers need to understand the Medicare administrative appeals process, especially in connection with overpayment determinations, Additional Documentation...more
With many hospitals well into their FY 2021 Medicare cost report preparation, here is a brief reminder of the process required for protesting items, as well as a summary of two new developments for Medicare Graduate Medical...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) FY 2022 Budget Justification request to Congress suggests an increased focus on Medicare claim reviews and an effort to decrease the number of claim denials overturned...more
The year 2020 saw much less medical review auditing, including a CMS suspension of audits between March 30 and August 3 of 2020. However, with the lifting of the CMS suspension, the CMS Supplemental Medical Review Contractor...more
Medicare pays billions of dollars in fraudulently billed claims each year despite the various tools the Medicare system has at its disposal. Because of this problem, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”)...more
In a Federal Register publication last month, CMS announced that it intended to retroactively adopt a change to its Medicare disproportionate share hospital (DSH) regulation. Specifically, it proposed adopting a 2014 change...more
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a new addition to its work plan: auditing whether payments made by Medicare for COVID-19 inpatient discharges billed by...more
The financial stakes are often very high for providers when statistical sampling and extrapolation is used to calculate an alleged Medicare overpayment. In post-payment audits involving extrapolation, an actual claims denial...more
Despite many parts of the country seeing upticks in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is ready to get back to some of its normal oversight activities related to the...more