Medicare Program; Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Prospective Payment System for Federal Fiscal Year 2019. Final rule.

This final rule updates the prospective payment rates for inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) for federal fiscal year (FY) 2019. As required by the Social Security Act (the Act), this final rule includes the classification and weighting factors for the IRF prospective payment system's (PPS) case-mix groups and a description of the methodologies and data used in computing the prospective payment rates for FY 2019. This final rule also alleviates administrative burden for IRFs by removing the Functional Independence Measure (FIM\TM\) instrument and associated Function Modifiers from the IRF Patient Assessment Instrument (IRF-PAI) beginning in FY 2020 and revises certain IRF coverage requirements to reduce the amount of required paperwork in the IRF setting beginning in FY 2019. Additionally, this final rule incorporates certain data items located in the Quality Indicators section of the IRF-PAI into the IRF case-mix classification system using analysis of 2 years of data beginning in FY 2020. For the IRF Quality Reporting Program (QRP), this final rule adopts a new measure removal factor, removes two measures from the IRF QRP measure set, and codifies a number of program requirements in our regulations.

Medicare Program; FY 2019 Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System and Quality Reporting Updates for Fiscal Year Beginning October 1, 2018 (FY 2019). Final rule.

This final rule updates the prospective payment rates for Medicare inpatient hospital services provided by inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPFs), which include psychiatric hospitals and excluded psychiatric units of an acute care hospital or critical access hospital. These changes are effective for IPF discharges occurring during the fiscal year (FY) beginning October 1, 2018 through September 30, 2019 (FY 2019). This final rule also updates the IPF labor-related share, the IPF wage index for FY 2019, and the International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD- 10-CM) codes for FY 2019. It also makes technical corrections to the IPF regulations, and updates quality measures and reporting requirements under the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting (IPFQR) Program. In addition, it updates providers on the status of IPF PPS refinements.

Medicare Program; Prospective Payment System and Consolidated Billing for Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF) Final Rule for FY 2019, SNF Value-Based Purchasing Program, and SNF Quality Reporting Program. Final rule.

This final rule updates the payment rates used under the prospective payment system (PPS) for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) for fiscal year (FY) 2019. This final rule also replaces the existing case-mix classification methodology, the Resource Utilization Groups, Version IV (RUG­IV) model, with a revised case-mix methodology called the Patient- Driven Payment Model (PDPM) beginning on October 1, 2019. The rule finalizes revisions to the regulation text that describes a beneficiary's SNF "resident" status under the consolidated billing provision and the required content of the SNF level of care certification. The rule also finalizes updates to the SNF Quality Reporting Program (QRP) and the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program.

Diagnosis-related Groups and Hospital Inpatient Federal Reimbursement.

To understand the complex system of reimbursement for health care services, it is helpful to have a working knowledge of the historic context of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), as well as their utility and increasing relevance. Congress implemented the DRG system in 1983 in response to rapidly increasing health care costs. The DRG system was designed to control hospital reimbursements by replacing retrospective payments with prospective payments for hospital charges. This article explains how these payments are calculated. Every inpatient admission is classified into one of several hundred DRGs that are based on the diagnosis, complications, and comorbidities. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) assigns each DRG a weight that the CMS uses in conjunction with hospital-specific data to determine reimbursement. A population's DRGs represent the resources needed to treat the medical disorders of that population. Hospital administrators use this information to budget and plan for the future. The Affordable Care Act and other recent legislation affect medical reimbursement by altering the DRG system. Radiologic procedures in particular are affected. This legislation will give DRGs an even larger role in determining reimbursements in the coming years.

Internal Controlling of a Radiology Department.

Caused by legal reform initiatives there is a continuous need to increase effectiveness and efficiency in hospitals and surgeries, and thus to improve processes.Consequently the successful management of radiological departments and surgeries requires suitable structures and optimization processes to make optimization in the fields of medical quality, service quality and efficiency possible.In future in the DRG System it is necessary that the organisation of processes must focus on the whole clinical treatment of the patients (Clinical Pathways). Therefore the functions of controlling must be more established and adjusted. On the basis of select Controlling instruments like budgeting, performance indicators, process optimization, staff controlling and benchmarking the target-based and efficient control of radiological surgeries and departments is shown.

Association of the position of a hospital-acquired condition diagnosis code with changes in medicare severity diagnosis-related group assignment.

CONTEXT: Incentives to improve quality include paying less for adverse events, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' policy to not pay additionally for events classified as hospital-acquired conditions (HACs). This policy is controversial, as variable coding practices at hospitals may lead to differences in the inclusion and position of HACs in the list of codes used for Medicare Severity Diagnosis-Related Group (MS-DRG) assignment. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate changes in MS-DRG assignment for patients with an HAC and test the association of the position of an HAC in the list of International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision (ICD-9) diagnosis codes with change in MS-DRG assignment. DESIGN AND SETTING: Retrospective analysis of patients discharged from hospital members of the University HealthSystem Consortium's Clinical Data Base between October 2007 and April 2008. Comparisons were made between the MS-DRG assigned when the HAC was not included in the list of ICD-9 diagnosis codes and the MS-DRG that would have been assigned had the HAC code been included in the assignment. RESULTS: Of the 7027 patients with an HAC, 13.8% changed MS-DRG assignment when the HAC was removed. An HAC in the second position versus third position or lower was associated with a 40-fold increase in the likelihood of MS-DRG change. CONCLUSIONS: The position of an HAC in the list of diagnosis codes, rather than the presence of an HAC, is associated with a change in MS-DRG assignment. HACs have little effect on reimbursement unless the HAC is in the second position and patients have minor severity of illness.

Medicare program; inpatient rehabilitation facility prospective payment system for federal fiscal year 2014. Final rule.

This final rule updates the prospective payment rates for inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) for federal fiscal year (FY) 2014 (for discharges occurring on or after October 1, 2013 and on or before September 30, 2014) as required by the statute. This final rule also revised the list of diagnosis codes that may be counted toward an IRF's "60 percent rule'' compliance calculation to determine "presumptive compliance,'' update the IRF facility-level adjustment factors using an enhanced estimation methodology, revise sections of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility-Patient Assessment Instrument, revise requirements for acute care hospitals that have IRF units, clarify the IRF regulation text regarding limitation of review, update references to previously changed sections in the regulations text, and revise and update quality measures and reporting requirements under the IRF quality reporting program.

Medicare program; prospective payment system and consolidated billing for skilled nursing facilities for FY 2014. Final rule.

This final rule updates the payment rates used under the prospective payment system for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) for fiscal year (FY) 2014. In addition, it revises and rebases the SNF market basket, revises and updates the labor related share, and makes certain technical and conforming revisions in the regulations text. This final rule also includes a policy for reporting the SNF market basket forecast error in certain limited circumstances and adds a new item to the Minimum Data Set (MDS), Version 3.0 for reporting the number of distinct therapy days. Finally, this final rule adopts a change to the diagnosis code used to determine which residents will receive the AIDS add-on payment, effective for services provided on or after the October 1, 2014 implementation date for conversion to ICD-10-CM.

Reforming reimbursement of public hospitals in Greece during the economic crisis: Implementation of a DRG system.

OBJECTIVES: Until recently, in-patient NHS hospital care in Greece was reimbursed via an anachronistic and under-priced retrospective per diem system, which has been held primarily responsible for continuous budget deficits. The purpose of this paper is to present the efforts of the Ministry of Health (MoH) to implement a new DRG-based payment system. METHODS: As in many countries, the decision was to adopt a patient classification from abroad and to refine it for use in Greece with national data. Pricing was achieved with a combination of activity-based costing with data from selected Greek hospitals, and "imported" cost weights. Data collection, IT support and monitoring are provided via ESY.net, a web-based facility developed and implemented by the MoH. RESULTS: After an initial pilot testing of the classification in 20 hospitals, complete DRG reimbursement data was reported by 113 hospitals (85% of total) for the fourth quarter of 2011. The recorded monthly increase in patient discharges billed with the new system and in revenue implies increasing adaptability by the hospitals. However, the unfavorable inlier vs. outlier distribution of discharges and revenue observed in some health regions signifies the need for corrective actions. CONCLUSIONS: The importance of this reimbursement reform is discussed in light of the current crisis faced by the Greek economy. There is yet much to be done and many projects are currently in progress to support this effort; however the first cost containment results are encouraging.