The newly established 2022 hospitalization payment rules will remove some of the price transparency requirements for hospitals, increase payments by billions of dollars, and require facilities to report the Covid-19 vaccination coverage rate of their staff.
Monday, the Medical Insurance and Medicaid Service Center is finalized Its fiscal year 2022 medical insurance hospital inpatient expected payment system rules will take effect on October 1.
The final rule will implement several new regulations, including removing the requirement that hospitals report the median negotiated fee for a particular payer by all Medicare Advantage insurance companies in their Medicare cost reports. The regulation dates back to January 1.
Suppliers cheered for this move. Stacey Hughes, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association, stated that the policy of requiring hospitals to share the rates negotiated with Medicare Advantage is to better align the Medicare payment for service charges with market rates. In the statement posted online.
“However, the privately negotiated rate takes into account many unique circumstances between the private payer and the hospital, and is not an appropriate benchmark for service-based medical insurance payments,” she said.
The final rule will also increase payments to hospitals. General emergency hospitals that successfully participate in the hospital inpatient quality report program and are meaningful EHR users will receive a 2.5% increase in reimbursement. Taking into account the disproportionate hospital payments and unpaid care expected to decrease by US$1.4 billion in medical insurance, CMS expects hospital payments to increase by US$2.3 billion.
Which is slightly lower than $2.5 billion salary increase Forecast in the version of the proposed rule released in April.
In addition, CMS finalized its proposal that the hospital will receive additional payments for new technology for eligible Covid-19 products before the end of the fiscal year that declares the end of the public health emergency. Not only does CMS continue to provide additional payments for all 23 technologies it currently receives, but it has also approved 19 new technologies for payment.
CMS estimates that in 2022, medical insurance expenditures on additional payments for new technologies will reach approximately US$1.5 billion, an increase of 77% over 2021 expenditures.
Another major change that is being finalized is the addition of new measures to the hospital inpatient quality reporting plan, which is a pay-for-report quality plan. CMS adds a new structural measurement of maternal morbidity, which will assess hospital participation in statewide or national perinatal quality improvement programs and the implementation of safety practices or bundles.
The agency has also increased Covid-19 vaccination coverage measures for health care workers. Hospitals participating in the IQR plan will be required to report their staff’s vaccination coverage to the National Medical Security Network’s network-based surveillance system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hospitals and health systems across the country Force them Employees were vaccinated against Covid-19, which triggered protests and lawsuits.
Due to the addition of this measure to the final rule, CMS supports mandatory vaccination, and the American Hospital Association agrees with this.
“While CMS’s new quality measurement of Covid-19 vaccination rates for healthcare workers may need to be further refined to ensure that it accurately reflects the hospital’s progress in vaccinating its employees, we will work with CMS, CDC and hospitals to The report to promote this measurement standard begins October 1,” said Hughes, executive vice president of the association.
To read the complete final rule, Click here.
Photo: champc, Getty Images
