Essential hospitals can expect the new Congress' Republican leaders to follow through quickly with their pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

A CMS spokesperson said the project was pulled after the agency reviewed public comments — there were more than 1,300 comments submitted, mostly negative.

The legislation, expected to quickly receive the president's signature, includes two key advocacy goals for the association: risk adjustment of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program and partial relief from hospital outpatient department payment cuts.

Congress is poised to pass legislation that would include socioeconomic risk adjustment for the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program and some relief from payment cuts for new hospital outpatient departments.

Under the rule, CMS would increase the OPPS payment rate by 1.65 percent and provide flexibility in the meaningful use of EHRs, among other things.

CMS provides more flexibility than previously proposed, ensuring non-grandfathered, off-campus hospital outpatient departments will be reimbursed in 2017.

In the rule, CMS revised its earlier position not to direct any physician fee schedule payments to non-grandfathered, off-campus hospital clinics in 2017 and, instead, established a 50 percent interim rate.

The proposed rule updates the payment rate for services provided in hospital outpatient departments and provisions relating to quality reporting.

The proposed rule would implement Section 603 of the Bipartisan Budget Act, which reduced payments for new, off-campus hospital outpatient departments.

America's Essential Hospitals denounces the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services decision to limit flexibility and withhold hospital payments for new, off-campus hospital outpatient departments.

A 2015 budget law that creates site-neutral payment for off-campus hospital outpatient departments does not directly affect 340B Drug Pricing Program eligibility, but changes to how hospitals report Medicare costs does raise concerns.

In letter to CMS, association raises issues of payment, definition of off-campus outpatient department of a provider, and 340B eligibility.

Changes include reducing OPPS payment by 0.3 percent, relaxing two-midnight policy requirements, and updating OQR measures.

In comments on the CY 2016 OPPS proposed rule, the association calls on CMS to consider the unique challenges of caring for the most vulnerable, including in relation to the two-midnight policy and ambulatory payment classification.

RACs will not conduct postpayment reviews of patient status for Medicare claims with an inpatient admission between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2015.

Agency proposes to reduce slightly payment rates for hospital outpatient services, relax some provisions of the two-midnight policy, and update quality reporting measures.

In a new policy brief, America's Essential Hospitals describes how billions of dollars in reductions to Medicaid and Medicare funding threaten care at essential hospitals.

Topics of member interest include payment updates, the OQR Program, and the MSSP.

The rules, released Oct. 31, finalized a number of provisions regarding payments, data collection in outpatient departments, quality programs, and the MSSP.

The association urged CMS to revise its C-APC proposal and opposed its proposal to add a claims-based modifier for every outpatient service provided in off-campus provider-based departments.

The agency proposes to increase payment rates by an outpatient department fee schedule increase factor of 2.1 percent for CY 2015. CMS also proposes to collect data on services provided in off-campus provider-based departments by requiring hospitals and physicians to identify these services using a modifier on hospital and physician claims.

CMS released the rule July 3. The agency proposes to increase payment rates by an outpatient department fee schedule increase factor of 2.1 percent for CY 2015. In addition, CMS proposes to collect data on services provided in off-campus provider-based departments by requiring hospitals and physicians to identify these services using a modifier on hospital and physician claims.

The measure, OP-31/ASC-11, is part of the ASC Quality Reporting Program and the OQR Program. Data collection, which was scheduled to begin April 1, will now begin Jan. 1, 2015. America's Essential Hospitals successfully encouraged CMS to delay the measure, arguing the measure was not properly tested for the ASC and outpatient settings.

Voted unanimously to recommend Congress increase Medicare payments rates for FY 2015 OPPS

The rule replaces outpatient visit codes with a single code describing all clinic visits

On November 27, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) final rule for calendar year (CY) 2014. Included in the rule are provisions related to the following: payment for hospital outpatient visits data collection in off-campus, provider-based departments Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) Program Hospital Value-Based Purchasing

Rule finalizes several Outpatient Prospective Payment System provisions