CMS NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2018
Contact: CMS Media Relations
CMS
Proposes Changes to Empower Patients and Reduce Administrative Burden
Changes
in Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Long-Term Care Hospital
Prospective Payment System would advance price transparency and
interoperability
Today, the Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed changes to empower patients through
better access to hospital price information, improve patients’ access to
their electronic health records, and make it easier for providers to spend
time with their patients. The proposed rule issued today proposes updates
to Medicare payment policies and rates under the Inpatient Prospective
Payment System (IPPS) and the Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective
Payment System (PPS).
“We seek to ensure the
healthcare system puts patients first,” said Administrator Seema Verma.
“Today’s proposed rule demonstrates our commitment to patient access
to high quality care while removing outdated and redundant regulations on
providers. We envision a system that rewards value over volume and where
patients reap the benefits through more choices and better health outcomes.
Secretary Azar has made such a value-based transformation in our healthcare
system a top priority for HHS, and CMS is taking important, concrete steps
toward achieving it.”
The policies in the IPPS and
LTCH PPS proposed rule would further advance the agency’s priority of
creating a patient-driven healthcare system by achieving greater price
transparency and interoperability – essential components of value-based
care – while also significantly reducing the burden for hospitals so they
can operate with better flexibility and patients have the information they
need to become active healthcare consumers.
While hospitals are already
required under guidelines developed by CMS to either make publicly
available a list of their standard charges, or their policies for allowing
the public to view a list of those charges upon request, CMS is updating
its guidelines to specifically require that hospitals post this
information. The agency is also seeking comment on what price transparency
information stakeholders would find most useful and how best to help
hospitals create patient-friendly interfaces to make it easier for
consumers to access relevant health care data so they can more readily
compare providers.
The proposed policies released
today begin implementing core pieces of the government-wide MyHealthEData
initiative through several steps to strengthen interoperability or the
sharing of healthcare data between providers. Specifically, CMS is
proposing to overhaul the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record
Incentive Programs (also known as the “Meaningful Use” program) to:
- make the program
more flexible and less burdensome,
- emphasize measures
that require the exchange of health information between providers and
patients, and
- incentivize
providers to make it easier for patients to obtain their medical
records electronically.
To better reflect this new
focus, we are re-naming the Meaningful Use program “Promoting
Interoperability.” In addition, the proposed rule reiterates the
requirement for providers to use the 2015 Edition of certified electronic
health record technology in 2019 as part of demonstrating meaningful use to
qualify for incentive payments and avoid reductions to Medicare payments.
This updated technology includes the use of application programming
interfaces (APIs), which have the potential to improve the flow of
information between providers and patients. Patients could collect their
health information from multiple providers and potentially incorporate all
of their health information into a single portal, application, program, or
other software. This can support a patient’s ability to share their
information with another member of their care team or with a new doctor, which can reduce duplication and provide
continuity of care. In the proposed
rule, CMS is requesting stakeholder feedback through a Request for
Information on the possibility of revising Conditions of Participation to
revive interoperability as a way to increase electronic sharing of data by
hospitals.
As part of its commitment to
burden reduction, CMS is proposing in the FY 2019 IPPS/LTCH PPS proposed
rule to remove unnecessary, redundant, and process-driven quality measures
from a number of quality reporting and pay-for-performance programs. The
proposed rule would eliminate a significant number of measures acute care
hospitals are currently required to report and remove duplicative measures
across the 5 hospital quality and value-based purchasing programs. This
would result in the removal of a total of 19 measures from the programs and
would de-duplicate another 21 measures while still maintaining meaningful
measures of hospital quality and patient safety. Additionally, CMS is
proposing a variety of other changes to reduce the number of hours
providers spend on paperwork. CMS is proposing this new flexibility so that
hospitals can spend more time providing care to their patients thereby
improving the quality of care their patients receive.
In sum this results in the
elimination of 25 total measures across the 5 programs with well over 2
million burden hours reduced for hospital providers impacted by the IPPS
proposed rule, saving them $75 million.
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