The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed an increase in 2021 Medicare payments to inpatient rehab facilities (IFRs) by $270 million. The proposal also included a suggested 5% cap on wage index decreases.
Medicare spent approximately $8 billion on IRF care for beneficiaries – 364,000 beneficiaries had 408,000 IRF stays, according to MedPac. The Medicare fee-for-service program accounted for about 59% of IRF discharges.
The agency’s proposal would allow non-physician clinicians to perform service and documentation tasks, currently limited to physicians. CMS is also proposing to waive post-admission physician evaluation requirements within 24 hours of admission, reimbursement would still be granted if providers deemed it necessary.
The MedPac Commission voted largely in favor of the agency’s proposal and provided additional recommendations, including:
- The high-cost outlier pool be expanded to further redistribute payments in the IRF payment system and reduce the impact of misalignments between IRF payments and costs.
- The Secretary conduct focused medical record review of IRFs that have unusual patterns of case mix and coding and conduct other research necessary to improve the accuracy of payments and protect program integrity.
CMS is not proposing any changes to the quality reporting program next year, but the agency notes it has, “issued an unprecedented array of temporary regulatory waivers and new rules to equip the American healthcare system with maximum flexibility to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Visit the CMS site for the proposal fact sheet.
Check out MedPac’s analysis of the proposal here.
And take a look at Modern Healthcare for more.
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