Revenue is not a goal; it is an outcome. Healthcare providers, hospitals and other services, have struggled for the last decade to maintain sustainable revenue for survival. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic changing borderline net revenue to worsening losses. Many have instituted new practices to acquire more revenue not realizing increased revenue is […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services on Tuesday unveiled a sweeping proposed rule that would nullify the mandated public disclosure of negotiated rates between payers and providers and increase by 2.8% Medicare’s inpatient prospective payment in fiscal year 2022. “The rule’s provisions seek to sustain hospital readiness to respond to future public health threats, […]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has updated the Medicare fee-for-service payment rates and policies for inpatient hospitals and long-term care hospitals for 2022. Before taking into account Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments and Medicare uncompensated care payments, the proposed increase in operating payment rates, increases in capital payments, increases in payments for new […]
The COVID-19 pandemic created a host of challenges for revenue cycle management leaders, from widespread service line shutdowns to shifting staff to work at home and increasing self-pay balances. These pressures have heightened inefficiencies in A/R processes and productivity. While these challenges took a massive financial toll on healthcare organizations—to the tune of $323 billion […]
The COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies are being paid under the vaccine benefit. Q: What revenue code should be attached to HCPCS codes M0239 (intravenous infusion, bamlanivimab-xxxx, includes infusion and post administration monitoring) and M0243 (intravenous infusion, casirivimab and imdevimab includes infusion and post administration monitoring)? We set it up as revenue code 260 but are getting […]
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 […]
Some providers are taking steps to serve those that have historically been neglected. When examining the big picture of our society, rural America is grossly under-represented in many ways. While areas defined as “rural” comprise 80% of the total US land area, its inhabitants comprise only 20% of the US population (US Census Bureau) In other words, […]
Most physicians still faced a high prior authorization burden despite treating a surge of positive COVID-19 cases this winter, the American Medical Association (AMA) reports. In a survey of 1,000 practicing physicians between Nov. 23, 2020, and Dec. 14, 2020, AMA found that 85 percent of physicians described the burden associated with prior authorization as high […]
Both rules would do more than merely impact payment. Federal officials this week unveiled a pair of proposed rules that are likely to have significant ramifications for hospice and skilled nursing facility (SNF) providers nationwide. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rules 1754-P and 1756-P were issued on Thursday, along with lengthy fact sheets […]