Articles and Blogs

Government Funded After Congress Borders on Another Shutdown Congressional negotiators have reached an agreement on a funding deal that avoids another partial government shutdown that would have occurred at midnight tonight. The measure would fund nine out of fifteen federal departments through September 30, 2019. President Trump is expected to sign the legislation into... READ MORE

Congress Passes Two-Week Stopgap Funding Measure On December 6, Congress passed a continuing resolution that extends current funding for select federal agencies for two weeks. The extension became necessary after the services for former President George H.W. Bush halted almost all legislative activity on Capitol Hill this week. Lawmakers will now have until December... READ MORE

In September 2018, HHS Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued audit Report No. A-01-15-00500 (the “Report”) finding that out of 220 randomly sampled inpatient rehabilitation facility (“IRF”) stays from 2013, nearly 80 percent did not meet Medicare coverage and documentation requirements. Specifically, for 175 of the 220 sampled stays at 135 IRFs, the medical record... READ MORE

Hospitals Release Voluntary 340B Principles as Alternative to Legislation The battle over 340B continued this week as hospital groups announced a new voluntary 340B reporting program as an alternative to congressional legislation that would further regulate the program. Under the American Hospital Association-led initiative, hospitals would commit to publicly disclosing their 340B savings annually.... READ MORE

Senate and House Appropriators Nail Down HHS Funding Bill On September 13, a conference committee of House and Senate appropriators finalized details of the fiscal year 2019 Health and Human Services (“HHS”) spending bill, H.R. 6157, which was combined with legislation to fund the Department of Defense. The conference agreement paves a path for... READ MORE

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced its long-awaited “BPCI Advanced” model on January 9. The model – which is voluntary – will initially include 29 inpatient clinical episodes and 3 outpatient clinical episodes (a list of the 32 clinical episodes can be found here). BPCI Advanced Participants must elect to be... READ MORE

On June 16, 2017, CMS issued transmittal S&C: 17-34-ALL. This transmittal set forth changes to the format of Plans of Correction (“POC”) and Allegations of Compliance (“AOC”). Providers will no longer be required to write their POC/AOC on the right side of the CMS Form 2567 (“2567”). Providers are now allowed to submit the... READ MORE

Review of the New Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement Condition This is the first article in a series discussing CMS’s pre-publication copy of the Final Revised Home Health Conditions of Participation (“Final CoPs”). With the release of the Final CoPs, CMS is finalizing, with only a few changes, the significant changes they proposed to... READ MORE

Wisconsin’s long-standing hospital regulation, DHS 124, will be significantly reformed beginning on July 1, 2016. DHS 124, described in the governor’s 2013 Regulatory Review Report as “outdated, duplicative, and confusing for health care operators,” has been the focus of regulatory reform efforts for more than a decade. Signed into law on April 8, 2014,... READ MORE

In an interim final rule published in the Federal Register on April 21 (“Rule”), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) amended its regulations to allow PPS hospitals located in urban areas to obtain a “412.103” urban to rural reclassification and also be reclassified for wage index purposes by the Medicare Geographic Classification... READ MORE