The American Hospital Association has sent a letter to CMS asking the agency to reduce the proposed documentation and coding offset included in its 2012 Inpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule, according to an AHA News Now report.
The proposed offset would cut payments to hospitals by 6.05 percent, or 0.55 percent when included with other policy changes in the IPPS proposed rule.
AHA opposes CMS' methodology for determining the coding offset, arguing that the increase in case-mix severity could indeed be a result of hospitals treating truly sicker patients as opposed to the implementation of Medicare DRGs (diagnosis-related groups), as CMS contends.
"CMS' proposed cut is excessive in light of these historical trends in CMI change and should not be implemented," said the AHA in the letter.
AHA also took issue with CMS' Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, which will reduce Medicare payments to hospitals with high readmission rates. According to the AHA, the proposed rule exclude too few planned readmissions from counting against hospitals and has called for CMS to modify the program's measure to exclude unrelated and unplanned readmissions, according to the report.
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The proposed offset would cut payments to hospitals by 6.05 percent, or 0.55 percent when included with other policy changes in the IPPS proposed rule.
AHA opposes CMS' methodology for determining the coding offset, arguing that the increase in case-mix severity could indeed be a result of hospitals treating truly sicker patients as opposed to the implementation of Medicare DRGs (diagnosis-related groups), as CMS contends.
"CMS' proposed cut is excessive in light of these historical trends in CMI change and should not be implemented," said the AHA in the letter.
AHA also took issue with CMS' Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, which will reduce Medicare payments to hospitals with high readmission rates. According to the AHA, the proposed rule exclude too few planned readmissions from counting against hospitals and has called for CMS to modify the program's measure to exclude unrelated and unplanned readmissions, according to the report.
Related Articles on the IPPS documentation and coding offset:
MedPAC Considers 1% Payment Update for Hospitals in 2012