Medicare News
| For Immediate Release: | Contact: |
| Wednesday, December 19, 2001 | CMS Office of Public Affairs 202-690-6145 |
For questions about Medicare please call 1-800-MEDICARE or visit www.medicare.gov. |
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HHS TO POSTPONE IMPLEMENTATION OF OUTPATIENT PROSPECTIVE PAYMENT REGULATION
The Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will issue a notice in the Federal Register before Dec. 31, 2001, announcing that the 2002 hospital outpatient prospective payment system rates set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2002, will be postponed while CMS continues to review the rates and codes announced in November of this year.
"Our goal is to provide the best service possible to Medicare beneficiaries, hospitals and doctors, and we believe this action will help CMS meet that goal," said HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.
Since issuing the final regulation on Nov. 30, CMS discovered a number of technical miscalculations in the assignment of the cost of certain new technology devices to related procedure codes. Once the corrections are made, CMS will do a thorough review of all outpatient codes with medical experts and again review the data to insure there are no additional calculation errors. The revised rates and codes will then be published in the Federal Register. There are more than 300 ambulatory payment classification codes (APCs) for outpatient procedures and 53 APCs that involve new technology devices.
"I expect this to be a one time glitch in the system," said CMS Administrator Tom Scully. " I believe a review of all our outpatient codes, and the entire program, is best served by this delay. We do not want to undercut patient or provider confidence in the Medicare program.
“We also appreciate the bipartisan, bicameral support for our efforts to delay, as outlined in the letter from the key congressional committee chairs and ranking members,” said Scully.
Hospitals will be paid for outpatient services they provide to Medicare beneficiaries at the 2001 rates until CMS has completed its review, but such review will not be extended beyond March 31, 2002.
