Today the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a rule that proposes to delay ICD-10 one year from Oct. 2013 to Oct. 2014. The rule also includes a proposal to implement a national health plan identifier, required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA). This is a great step… Continue reading »
Through ongoing discussions between ASA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), ASA has clarified that the previously announced changes to the Medicare anesthesia conversion factor resulted from an error in the original calculations of the CY 2012 Anesthesia Conversion Factor. CMS has instructed its contractors to update their claims processing files to… Continue reading »
Beginning March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear six hours of oral arguments spread out over three days regarding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and its provisions. In November, the court agreed to hear the lawsuit brought forth by 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)… Continue reading »
The EHR incentive program is targeted at office-based practices. Indeed, the original version of the program would have excluded anesthesiologists explicitly. The July 28, 2010 final rule however, restricted the definition of “hospital-based” so that it only covered physicians who provide 90 percent or more of their services on an inpatient basis or in the… Continue reading »
As part of President Obama’s commitment to reducing regulatory burden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius today announced that HHS will initiate a process to postpone the date by which certain health care entities have to comply with International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-10). The final rule adopting… Continue reading »
