The 2016 OPPS proposed rule released July 2 is deceptively short, but packs a punch. CMS is proposing the most massive APC reconfiguration and consolidation of APC groups since the beginning of OPPS, says Jugna Shah, MPH, president and founder of Nimitt Consulting, based in Washington, D.C., and Spicer, Minnesota.
To get a real sense of the financial impact, providers will need to take several steps, says Shah. First, review the narrative text to get a feel for the major categories of changes CMS is proposing, including some of the operational ones.
One of the biggest challenges to the provider community, including hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAH), is keeping up to date with current regulatory requirements, particularly when it comes to rules on coverage, coding, billing, and payment for services provided to beneficiaries under federal healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. For those of you who have taken one of our hospital or CAH Medicare Boot Camps, you probably remember discussing this early during the week, when we identified the major official sources of authority on Medicare rules, as well as some tips about how to efficiently keep yourselves up to date.
A few days after Briefings on APCs conducted the interview that appeared in last month's issue with W. Jeff Terry, MD, an AMA delegate from Mobile, Alabama, the AMA and CMS announced an accord regarding ICD-10.
In a joint announcement, the organizations said that CMS would not audit or deny Part B physician fee schedule claims for one year after ICD-10-CM implementation due to lack of specificity. While physicians will still be responsible for meeting medical necessity and LCD and NCD requirements, valid ICD-10-CM codes that include the appropriate first three characters will be sufficiently specific for Medicare claims.
