This issue of McDermott’s Healthcare Regulatory Check-Up highlights regulatory activity for June 2024. We discuss several US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agency actions, including guidance regarding hospital...more
On June 24, 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized the Establishment of Disincentives for Health Care Providers That Have Committed Information Blocking (Disincentive Rule) under the 21st Century...more
On June 24, 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the 21st...more
Recently, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) announced the...more
As physician groups and other stakeholders work to finalize comment letters on the calendar year (CY) 2024 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed regulation by September 11, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services...more
• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published the Calendar Year (CY) 2019 Final Rule for the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), which includes provisions related to Medicare physician payments as well...more
On August 9, 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that would redesign the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP). The proposed changes would accelerate the risks associated with...more
On July 12, 2018, CMS issued proposed revisions to Year 3 of the Quality Payment Program (QPP) in the rule entitled Revisions to Payment Policies under the Physician Fee Schedule and Other Revisions to Part B for CY 2019;...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing a redesign of incentives under the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) as part of the 2019 Updates to the Quality Payment Program (QPP). This affects...more
The Trump Administration on Feb. 12 released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 budget request, titled "An American Budget." Unlike last year's budget, which was released in late May, the release of this budget conforms to the typical...more
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published two important guidance statements on so-called "information blocking," i.e., knowingly and willfully limiting or restricting the compatibility or...more
Summer was no vacation for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The agency released a series of significant rules that signal the nature and pace of CMS Medicare payment and policy changes for hospitals and...more
On June 20, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule entitled, "Medicare Program; CY 2018 Updates to the Quality Payment Program." CMS proposes changes for the second year (2018) of the...more
If you are a physician, mid-level provider, or work with those providers, then you have been bombarded with new acronyms for new programs and promises to remove older acronyms from your Medicare vocabulary. Medicare...more
Since I began writing this year-end review in 2013, there have been some common themes – a shift to pay for quality and away from fee-for service, much of which has been brought about by the Affordable Care Act (ACA): efforts...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule on July 25, 2016, entitled, Advancing Care Coordination Through Episode Payment Models (EPMs); Cardiac Rehabilitation Incentive Payment Model; and...more
Quality Improvement Organization Releases Guidance on Short-Stay Reviews – As previously reported, in July 2015, CMS announced that Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) would begin conducting reviews of certain inpatient ...more
On October 6, 2015, CMS released the final Stage 3 Meaningful Use Rule that, among other provisions, sets forth the requirements that eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must...more
On September 28, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a Request for Information (RFI) seeking stakeholder comments related to innovative physician payment models required by the Medicare Access...more
On July 8, 2015, CMS issued its annual proposed rule outlining payment policies, payment rates, and quality provisions for services furnished under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) for CY 2016. In the proposed rule,...more