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Congress Passes Legislation to Prevent Payment Cuts
News
Congress passed legislation to prevent the Medicare payment cuts. The next step will be for the bill to go to the President for signature. This, I’m sure he will do with pleasure as it is attached to the bill renewing the payroll tax cuts and the jobless benefits. The whole bill is expected to cost $143 billion. See our previous post for more details of the Medicare changes.
Congress Making Deal to Forestall Medicare Cuts
News
Late yesterday the Congressional Conference Committee released the details of a deal that would prevent the 27.4% payment cut to Medicare providers scheduled to take place on March 1. The Geographic Practice Cost Index (GPCI) will be maintained at the current level along with an extension of the therapy cap exceptions process till the end of the year. However there are a few provisions included with this extension. a) Continues consistent use of the KX modifier when the cap ($1880 for 2012) is met provided the patient continues to meet …
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HHS to Delay Implimentation of ICD-10
News
HHS has now indicated that it is ready to look at postponing the implimentation od the ICD-10 system in October next year. To learn more visit the ICD Monitor through this link
CMS Issues Proposed Rule for Reporting and Returning of Overpayments
News
On Tue Feb 14, CMS proposed that providers and suppliers must “report and return self-identified overpayments either within 60 days of the incorrect payment being identified or on the date when a corresponding cost report is due, whichever is later.” The new announcement is one in a series of steps Medicare is taking to protect taxpayer dollars, including efforts to prevent overpayments from occurring. These efforts include letting private auditors working on behalf of Medicare catch wasteful spending before it happens,by expanding the use of Recovery Audit Contractors; testing changes …
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Our Seminars For 2012
News
We have changed how we will be presenting our live seminars for 2012 by scheduling both our SNF and Outpatient Part B seminars over the same weekend. This will help in keeping our registration price down for these presentations. We will be presenting Mastering Medicare: A Practical Guide To Succeeding Under RUG IV on a Friday; the Anatomy of Documentation, which was the second day of last year’s Mastering Medicare, will be scheduled on the Saturday with Tests, Measures & Questionnaires following on Sunday. This change in format will allow …
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Legislation Passed to Prevent Caps and Cuts Until February 29, 2012
News
It was the night before Christmas and all through the House (and Senate) members of Congress wanted to get home and so they did what Congress has been doing for the last 5 years (other than in 2010) and passed a stop-gap measure to prevent the reduction in the PFS of almost 28% and to extend the exception process until February 20th 2012. (Actually, it was not really the night before Christmas but almost.) Talk about déjà vue all over again. Both houses had already passed legislation to address the …
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CMS publishes the updates to the RAI Manual
News
This week CMS published the updates to the Minimum Data Set (MDS) 3.0 Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) manual for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). These updates will be effective October 1st, 2012. The manual contains both the updated version files (new for 2012) and earlier version (no change) files. Change-table files are included only for sections of the manual that have changes that will be effective October 1. Sections that have been updated include: Title Page, Table of Contents, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 (Introduction, Sections: C, H, I, K, …
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CMS Issues SNF Final Rule
News
CMS issued its Final Rule yesterday with an 11.1% reduction in overall payments. All of the other proposals of the Interim Rule were kept. We will review the posted rule and provide additional specific information. We will be including training on the new assessments as well as the updates to group, set-up time and the assessment windows in our upcoming Mastering Medicare series. Don’t wait, places are limited.
OIG Warns CMS About Changes In SNF Billing In FY2011
What's New SNF
OIG warns CMS about the escalating cost of SNF services occurring with MDS3.0 and RUG IV.
Encourages CMS to impliment changes to group therapy, assessment windows and recalculating payment level when beneficairy needs change.
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CMS Posts Updated MDS 3.0 Materials
What's New SNF
This week CMS the new MDS 3.0 v1.00.4 along with the updated RAI Manual. The only changes affecting therapy are the addition of the Change of Therapy (COT)OMRA to A0310C and an added section in section O, O0450 that identifies the resumption of therapy as indicated in the EOT-R when therapy is resumed at the same level after a break of 3 to 5 days in treatment. For the updated RAI Manual, there is no directions for the changes proposed in the Interim Final Rule concerning supervision of Students, use of …
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