The release of the Quality Payment Program proposed rule introduced virtual groups as a way to reduce burden on small practices and clinicians. While the MACRA legislation laid out the initial concept of virtual groups, this proposed rule revealed many more details about how virtual groups will function.
CMS has spoken repeatedly of easing the burden for providers this spring, and the agency’s Quality Payment Program (QPP) proposed rule released June 20 attempts to do that for small practices and other clinicians.
CMS issued SE1609 to clarify long-standing policy concerning external infusion pumps. Apparently, both freestanding physician offices and outpatient hospital departments were treating external pumps as an item of durable medical equipment, even when the physician or hospital department set up the pump on the patient, supplied the drug, and programmed the infusion rate and dose into the pump.
When CMS introduced Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCC) with risk-adjusted scores, Ochsner Health System began efforts to educate providers and improve documentation across its many facilities.
In ICD-10-CM, defining, diagnosing, and documenting the various forms of altered mental status and their underlying causes remains an ongoing challenge for physicians and their facilities.
Accurate clinical documentation is the bedrock of the legal medical record, billing, and coding. It is also the most complex and vulnerable part of the revenue cycle.
With value-based reimbursement, providers now must shoulder the health of the patient no matter where the patient receives care. The ability to share patient information seamlessly between these entities using interoperable technology is the next evolution of healthcare.
Ochsner Clinic Foundation began its ambulatory clinical documentation excellence journey in 2004, when Medicare implemented its Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCC). Since HCCs affect patients’ Risk Adjustment Factor scores, and ultimately reimbursement for the care required to treat sicker patients, Ochsner needed to determine the best way to ensure annual HCC capture for all patients across its vast system.
There is an extensive list of coverage requirements that must be met to furnish outpatient services to Medicare beneficiaries. Hospitals may find that certain coverage requirements for therapeutic and diagnostic service are more difficult to meet than others, especially in off-campus provider-based departments.
Traditionally, the OPPS rulemaking cycle has been the main vehicle for changes to outpatient coding and billing regulations and policy that hospitals need to pay attention to. But increasingly, CMS has been introducing or discussing changes relevant to outpatient hospitals beyond the scope of the OPPS rules.
