CMS continues to focus on quality reporting, reducing readmissions, hospital-acquired conditions, and increasing payments for disproportionate share hospitals.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final 2018 inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) rule, which covers acute care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals and units, cancer hospitals, critical access hospitals (CAH), certain rural hospitals, and long-term care hospitals (LTCH). The rule is effective for discharges on or after October 1, 2017.
Payments will increase
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CMS estimates that payments will increase by 1.3 percent overall, which is equivalent to $2.4 billion for IPPS hospitals. This rule focuses on quality reporting, reducing readmissions, hospital-acquired conditions, and increasing payments for disproportionate share hospitals (DSH) that still experience high uncompensated care costs. Uncompensated care payments will increase by $789 million to $6.766 billion.
CMS continues to focus on their commitment to enhancing quality reporting, reducing readmissions and hospital-acquired conditions, and the continued financial support to hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low income patients.
How we can help
CliftonLarsonAllen’s (CLA) Regulatory Advisor offers IPPS hospitals a summary of the proposed rule’s key provisions, and condenses pages of regulation into an accessible format that translates some of the more complex issues into understandable terms. Especially during the next phase of changes in our health care system, hospital leaders can rely on CLA to continue to monitor CMS publications and provide resources to help prepare hospitals for the future.