Congressional Leaders Urge CMS to Reconsider Inpatient Hospital Pay Cuts - July 27, 2010

On July 12, 242 House of Representatives members sent a letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Donald Berwick, urging CMS to reconsider plans under the proposed rule for the fiscal year (FY) 2011 Medicare inpatient prospective payment system to reduce payments to inpatient hospitals by changing documentation and coding practices. The letter notes that CMS’s proposed coding “offset” assumes that hospital payments have increased because of changes in coding practices, but fails to realize that hospitals may actually be treating more complex cases and severely ill patients. The letter also states that promulgation of the rule would result in a total $3.7 billion reduction in Medicare payments in FY 2011, compared to what hospitals would receive without the policy. NAPH’s analysis of the rule is available online.