Bill Averting Medicare Sequester Cuts Enacted

King & Spalding
Contact

 

The House and Senate voted last week, and President Biden signed into law on December 10, 2021, a bill to delay looming reduction in Medicare rates set to take effect in 2022. The bill, the Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act (the Act) provides for delays in Medicare sequestration cuts for 2022 and an increase to rates under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), among other changes. Set forth below is a summary of the Act’s provisions relating to Medicare.

  • The 2% sequestration cut that would apply to all Medicare rates beginning January 1, 2022 is postponed until April 1, 2022. Sequestration cuts for the period from April 1, 2022 through June 30, 2022 are reduced from 2% to 1%. Congress originally implemented the scheduled sequestration cuts in 2011 pursuant to the Budget Control Act.

  • Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) sequestration cuts, which would reduce Medicare spending by approximately 4% in 2022, are delayed until 2023.

  • Rates under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) are increased by 3% for 2022. This increase is intended to mitigate the expiration of the temporary 3.75% increase to PFS rates for 2021 that was implemented under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.

  • Rate reductions to the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS) are delayed until 2023. Requirements for certain hospital laboratories to report private payor data are also delayed until 2023.

  • Implementation of the new Medicare Radiation Oncology Model, which provides for episode-based payments for radiotherapy services, is delayed until 2023.

A copy of the Act is available here.

Written by:

King & Spalding
Contact
more
less

King & Spalding on:

Reporters on Deadline

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
Custom Email Digest
- hide
- hide