On June 25, 2010, President Obama signed into law H.R. 3962, the “Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010.” Among other things, the law provides a 2.2% increase to Medicare physician fee schedule payment rates, retroactive from June 1, 2010 through November 30, 2010 — temporarily cancelling a more than 21% reduction that was briefly triggered on June 1 when other temporary measures expired. Note that the law does not provide for long-term reform of the statutory sustainable growth formula, and the 21% cut will apply to December 2010 payments unless Congress takes additional action. CMS has directed contractors to reprocess all claims containing June 2010 dates of service that were paid under the negative update. In light of the temporary increase in rates, CMS is offering currently-nonparticipating physicians and other practitioners the opportunity to become participating providers through July 16, 2010. The cost of increasing physician fee schedule payment under H.R. 3962 is partially offset by a provision that clarifies Medicare payment of services provided in hospital outpatient departments on either the day of or during the three days prior to an inpatient admission (known as the 3-day payment window). The Senate Finance Committee describes the provision as closing a “loophole that had allowed the unbundling of services and submission of adjustment claims seeking separate and additional Medicare payments.” Note that the law makes no changes to the billing of diagnostic services. H.R. 3962 also includes a CMS-IRS “data match” program that authorizes CMS to collaborate with the IRS to determine whether providers applying to enroll or re-enroll in Medicare have failed to file federal tax returns or have delinquent tax debts.