Despite facing potential lawsuits and political opposition, CMS finalized some of its most controversial proposals in the 2019 OPPS final rule by implementing several site-neutral payment policies and 340B drug payment reductions.
Findings from a retrospective analysis of inpatient data recently published in Critical Care Medicine show that average hospital costs and mortality rates are significantly higher for patients diagnosed with sepsis after hospital admission when compared with patients diagnosed prior to admission.
Along with E/M changes for 2019 and beyond, the 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule contains a plethora of regulations impacting reimbursement, including new modifiers for therapists.
Medicare’s new method of calculating payment rates for laboratory tests, intended to reduce Medicare spending by $360 million in the first year, could cost the agency billions in overpayments, according to a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
