New legislation aims to eliminate the cost-sharing requirement for Medicare beneficiaries to get chronic care management services and reimburse providers for 100% of the payment. The legislation, reintroduced Thursday, intends to boost access among seniors to chronic care management services that include creating a care plan and medication reconciliation and adherence. “Chronic health conditions […]
Outside financial aid might not be the best long-term solution to the national problem of high healthcare costs and inadequate insurance coverage, but two rural hospitals are taking innovative approaches to tapping philanthropic resources to reduce their bad debt and help patients with medical bills. The American Hospital Association’s latest Annual Survey of Hospitals showed […]
Medicare value-based care efforts are crucial for moving forward value-based care in the healthcare industry overall. In a joint letter to the four representatives who introduced the bill in the House of Representatives, payer and provider organizations have thrown their support behind the Value in Health Care Act of 2021 which seeks to bolster Medicare […]
Understanding the qualifying payment amount and the initial information on the independent dispute resolution process “should be a short-term priority for revenue cycle leaders and their teams,” says attorney Harvey Rochman. Earlier this month, the federal government released an interim final rule outlining certain provisions of the No Surprises Act (NSA), which is designed […]
The interim rule is in response to the No Surprises Act, which directed multiple US departments to issue a rule that would quell surprise billing in commercial health plans. The Biden administration has issued an interim rule that regulates surprise billing in commercial health plans and employer-sponsored health plans, CMS announced. “No patient should forgo […]
The final rule is an implementation of the No Surprises Act, which was passed by Congress last year. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim final rule this week banning surprise medical bills and some out-of-network charges, which will go into effect on January 1, 2022 for providers and insurance […]
A lobbying onslaught from the health care industry nearly stopped Congress from passing a nationwide ban on “surprise” medical bills last year. Now, the same powerful groups are racing to sway federal agencies tasked with making the new law work — with billions of dollars and promised patient protections on the line. Health groups and […]
Medicare Radiology Payment System approach to advanced imaging reimbursement has been “dysfunctional” for decades, but health policy experts have a few suggestions to fix it. Over the past 20 years, the federal payment program witnessed “substantial” increases in the performance of MRIs, CT scans and nuclear studies, mostly in doc offices. A shift later […]
As promised, this is a follow-up to our first blog post on the new federal transparency requirements. In our prior post, we summarized the Hospital Price Transparency rule which went into effect on January 1, 2021, and here we discuss the transparency rules contained in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the “Act”), which apply to both health plans […]
CMS recommends that organizations review the agency’s most recent guidance on telehealth billing. CMS is reminding providers to ensure that Medicare claims for telehealth are correctly billed. The agency issued broadly expanded telehealth services as part of its response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. However, a 2018 Office of Inspector General audit found that CMS […]