CMS Issues ACO Final Rule

Last week the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued its proposed final rule for Accountable Care Organizations (“ACOs”) participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (“MSSP”), a program designed to promote accountability for a patient population, foster coordination of items and services under Medicare Parts A and B, and encourage investment in infrastructure and redesigned care processes for high quality and efficient health care service delivery. CMS issued its proposed rule on December 8, 2014, expanding the original rule from November 2011 (76 Federal Register 67802).

The final rule focuses on the following areas:

1. Data-sharing requirements;
2. Eligibility relating to ACO participants, providers and suppliers;
3. Application updates;
4. ACO legal structure and beneficiary requirements;
5. Assignment methodology;
6. Methodology for determining financial performance; and
7. Program integrity and transparency concerns

The final rule also addresses some of the 275 comments CMS received in response to the December 2014 proposed rule. In response to concerns about the program’s integrity, CMS commented as follows:

“In 2011, Medicare made almost no payments to providers through alternative payment models, but today such payments represent approximately 20 percent of Medicare payments. Earlier this year, the Secretary announced the ambitious goal of tying 30% of Medicare fee for service payments to quality and value by 2016 and by 2018 making 50% of payments through alternative payment models, such as the [MSSP]. . . . With over 400 ACOs serving over 7 million beneficiaries, the [MSSP] plays an important role in meeting the Secretary’s recently articulated goal.”

2016 Hospital IPPS For Acute Care Hospitals

This e-bulletin from the Health Law Committee of the Business Law Section for the State Bar of California, published on April 20, 2015, summarizes recent proposed regulations by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) for the Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2016 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems (“IPPS”) for Acute Care Hospitals.

Every spring CMS issues its proposed regulations to modify the inpatient prospective payment systems for acute care hospitals, as well as other facilities. Sometime in August CMS issues its final regulations in anticipation of the new fiscal year starting October 1. This year like all others, the 1,526 pages of regulatory guidance (reduced to approximately 800 triple-columned-pages in the Federal Register on April 30, 2015) provide hospitals with the most important revenue information for the year, especially as these institutions try to navigate through the current climate of health care reform.

The proposed regulations cover the gamut of Medicare reimbursement concerns, including the types of hospitals that must adhere to the 2016 changes as well as what’s new with the already established Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (“VBP”) Program, the Hospital-Acquired Condition (“HAC”) Program, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (“HRRP”) and disproportionate share hospital payments. One new additions to CMS’ annual encyclopedia of regulatory modifications includes a recoupment adjustment to account for changes in Medicare-severity diagnosis-related group (“MS-DRG”) documentation and coding that do not reflect real changes in case-mixing, totaling $11 billion over the next four years.

As the Medicare program continues to swell in ranks and hospitals become more dependent on revenue therefrom, just about any of the 382,000 words in the proposed regulations may hold the key to unlocking the mystery behind Medicare in 2016. For more information, the proposed regulation can be found here.

The following Health Law E-Bulletin was published by the Business Law Section of the California State Bar on March 27, 2015.

The following summarizes recent instructions from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) for disclosures of noncompliance arising solely from a violation of 42 C.F.R. § 411.362(b)(3)(ii)(C) (physician-owned hospitals: website and advertising disclosures).

As part of the Affordable Care Act, Section 6001, physician-owned hospitals and rural providers must disclose on any public website for the hospital, and in any public advertising, that the hospital is owned or has physician investors. See 42 C.F.R. § 362(b)(3)(ii)(C). CMS has determined that for providers to comply with the requirements in section IV.B of the CMS Voluntary Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol (OMB Control No.: 0938-1106), physician-owned hospitals disclosing non-compliance with this very specific part of the regulation need only provide the following information:

• Name and address of hospital
• Hospital’s CMS Certification Number(s) (CCN), national provider identification number(s) (NPI), and tax identification number(s) (TIN)
• Hospital’s contact person/representative for the disclosure
• Names and NPI numbers of all physicians who were owners/investors during the period(s) of noncompliance identified below.
• Period(s) of noncompliance: For the period beginning on September 23, 2011, identify the months during which the hospital had at least one noncompliance. The hospital can provide a date range to satisfy this requirement.
• Provide the requested certifications

The complete instructions appear online here. Other disclosures, including those that include website and advertising concerns, must follow the Voluntary Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol.