On April 24, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its hospital inpatient prospective payment system (PPS) proposed rule for fiscal year (FY) 2013. In addition to other proposed reductions, CMS included a new 0.8 percent cut to permanently eliminate documentation and coding cuts from FY 2010. This represents a proposed cut of approximately $1 billion.
Please contact your federal legislators and urge them to sign and send the letter attached below to President Obama asking the administration to rescind the proposed 0.8 coding offset related to FY 2010. The American Hospital Association is deeply disappointed that CMS has proposed this additional coding cut; it is inappropriate for the agency to continue to compare hospital documentation and coding in the substantially improved Medicare Severity Diagnosis-Related Group (MS-DRG) system in FY 2010 to documentation and coding under the DRG system in FY 2007.
In mid-May each MHA member hospital received its IPPS model for 2013. The model was broken out into the component parts of the reimbursement rate. One of the components was clearly marked as this 2010 coding offset. Each hospital should be able to look at this report and see exactly how this offset impacts its Medicare rate for 2013, if you wish to share that information with your legislators. (If you need the information resent, email Laura Kuhn at lkuhn@mhanet.org.)
Comments are due to CMS by June 25, and a final rule is expected on or about August 1. Please urge your legislators to send the attached letter to the White House with their concerns as soon as possible.
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