CMS Finalizes Rule To Reduce Medicare Physician Payments By 10%

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 06 Nov 2007 - 8:00 PDT

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CMS last week announced final rules for Medicare outpatient hospital care and physician reimbursements. Summaries appear below.

• Outpatient hospital care: CMS late last week announced a final rule that will increase Medicare outpatient hospital care reimbursements by 3.8% in 2008, CQ HealthBeat reports. However, overall Medicare expenditures for outpatient hospital care will increase by 10% in 2008, to $36 billion from $32.7 billion, because of the increased volume and complexity of services, CMS said. Under the rule, hospitals will have to report data on the seven outpatient care quality measures or have their reimbursements for such services reduced by 2% in 2009. The rule also will combine multiple outpatient services under a single reimbursement rate through "packaging" or "bundling" to prompt hospitals to provide such care more efficiently (Reichard [1], CQ HealthBeat, 11/2).
  
  
• Physicians: CMS late Thursday announced a final rule that will reduce Medicare physician reimbursements by 10.1% on Jan. 1, 2008, unless Congress acts to reverse the reductions, CQ HealthBeat reports. Under the rule, Medicare will pay $58.9 billion to about 900,000 physicians in 2008. CMS officials said that the agency "has no choice but to implement" the rule under current law (Reichard [2], CQ HealthBeat, 11/2).

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