In This Issue:

- CMS Releases Final Medicare Payment Rules

- Implementation of the Affordable Care Act

- Other Federal Regulatory Initiatives

- Other Congressional Initiatives

- Other Health Care News

- Upcoming Congressional Hearings and Markups

- Excerpt from CMS Releases Final Medicare Payment Rules:

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a trio of highly anticipated Medicare payment rules the afternoon of Friday, October 31st. The final payment rules, for physicians, hospital outpatient services, and end-stage renal disease, lay out how Medicare will pay major health care providers and suppliers in 2015. The day before, CMS also released changes to the Medicare home health prospective payment system (HH PPS) for CY 2015. For HH PPS, CMS predicts there will be reduced by 0.30 percent, reflecting the effects of the 2.1 percent home health payment update percentage and the second year of the four-year phase-in of rebasing.

Among other things, stakeholders lauded the changes made to the physician payments rule, which includes added coverage for telemedicine services. The final rule adds seven additional telemedicine billing codes, including for psychotherapy, prolonged office visits, and annual wellness visits. The rule also includes language laid out in the proposal to pay for remote patient monitoring for chronic conditions. Prior to this, Medicare did not pay separately for these services, bundling this billing into “evaluation and management” codes. In all, CMS predicts that Medicare payments to telehealth originating site providers will grow by 0.8 percent in 2015. Further analysis of the telemedicine aspects of the final rule are outlined in ML Strategies alert, Telehealth and Health IT Policy: Considerations for Stakeholders.