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Healthcare Policy News
2022 Medicare Hospital IPPS Final Rule Addresses AAOS Concerns
On Monday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final rule for fiscal year (FY) 2022 Medicare Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long-term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System, taking effect on Oct. 1. Earlier this year, AAOS submitted comments (found here) when the changes were being proposed and is pleased that CMS acknowledged several comments, including on the ‘Hospital-Level, Risk Standardized Patient Reported Outcomes Measure Following Elective Primary Total Hip and/or Total Knee Arthroplasty (NQF# 3559),’ encouraging use of clinical data registries in patient reported outcomes data collection. CMS also finalized add-on payments for 19 new technologies, including a one-year extension of new technology add-on payments for 13 technologies that would otherwise be discontinued in FY 2022. CMS will respond to provisions regarding payments to hospitals for direct graduate medical education and indirect medical education costs in subsequent parts of this final rule. Learn more with the CMS fact sheet…
Senate Begins Consideration of $550b Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal
On June 30, the Senate agreed to proceed to debate on the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure framework, with 16 Republicans joining Democrats to advance the legislation. The bill contains traditional infrastructure-related provisions to fund roads, bridges, transit, broadband build-out, and is expected to pass with bipartisan support this week. Offsets include re-purposing $200 billion in unspent COVID-19 relief funds – but leaving unspent money in the Provider Relief Fund untouched – and further delaying the Trump-era Medicare Part D drug rebate rule for $49 billion in savings. The bill saves $3 billion through a provision requiring rebates from pharmaceutical manufacturers for certain physician-administered single-use medications. An additional $9 billion of the bill’s cost will be covered by an extension of the Medicare sequester, which will result in a 2% cut to physician payment until 2031. AAOS is working in alignment with the rest of the physician community to advocate against Medicare cuts that will potentially take place January 1, 2022. Read more about the deal…
Updates Requested on Enforcement of Antitrust Law Against Insurers
Senators Patrick Leahy and Steve Daines recently requested updates from both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice on their efforts to combat anticompetitive conduct in the health insurance industry. Since the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act passed in January, neither agency has announced major steps to exercise their expanded antitrust enforcement authority under the new law. In their letter, the senators called on the agencies to provide information on any enforcement actions, guidelines, rulemaking, or other actions taken to extend antitrust enforcement to the health insurance industry. AAOS celebrated passage of the law on episode 15 of The Bone Beat podcast (listen here), which repeals the McCarran-Ferguson antitrust exemption which has unfairly protected health insurance companies since 1945. Read the press release… |
