CMS has released its proposed rule to update the Medicare home health prospective payment system (HH PPS) for 2017. CMS estimates that the policies in the proposed rule would reduce overall Medicare payments to home health agencies (HHAs) by $180 million (1.0%) in 2017 compared to 2016 payments. This projected decrease reflects a 2.3% home health payment update percentage (derived from a 2.8% market basket update minus a 0.5% multifactor productivity adjustment), that is more than offset by (i) a proposed 0.97% reduction to account for nominal case-mix coding intensity growth, and (ii) a -2.3% rebasing adjustment (the final year of a four-year phase-in). CMS also proposes changes to its calculation of outlier payments that would decrease payments by an estimated 0.1%. The proposed CY 2017 national, standardized 60-day episode payment rate would be $2,936.68; the rate for an HHA that does not submit the required quality data would be reduced by 2 percentage points to $$2,879.27. The proposed rule also would recalibrate HH PPS case-mix weights and update the home health wage index using more current hospital wage data.
Continue Reading CMS Proposes CY 2017 Update to Medicare Home Health PPS Rates