Inpatient psychiatric facilities next year will get a raise of 2.2% or $100 million in additional Medicare payments, and other news

Modern Healthcare

  • Inpatient psychiatric facilities next year will get a raise of 2.2% or $100 million in additional Medicare payments. The increase is more than the 1.5% or $80 million that psychiatric facilities received this year. The change came through a notice, versus a proposed rulemaking, so the agency will not be taking comments on the matter. The facilities are also expected to see an increase in Medicaid revenue next year now that a 50-year ban on Medicaid pay for mental health institutions was repealed.

  • UPMC will pay the government $2.5 million to settle allegations that its neurosurgeons submitted claims to Medicare for surgeries performed by others. The government had alleged that the Pittsburgh-based academic health system, UPMC Community Medicine, Tri-State Neurosurgical Associates-UPMC and University of Pittsburgh Physicians submitted claims to Medicare for neurosurgeons who supposedly assisted with or supervised surgeries, when the neurosurgeons did not participate enough in surgeries to justify the claims. UPMC said in a statement Thursday that it admits no liability as part of the settlement.

  • In a final rule released last week, the CMS more than doubled the annual payment increase to skilled-nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and hospice care. The agency also set new quality measures. The CMS expects to begin publicly reporting on quality measures and other hospice data by the middle of next year. The agency also finalized a skilled-nursing value-based program that would use measures that assess the rate at which skilled-nursing patients are readmitted within 30 days of being discharged from a facility paid under the inpatient prospective payment system, a critical-access hospital or a psychiatric hospital.
    • Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    hospitals debt 0924
    What growing medical debt relief efforts mean for providers
    Dollar sign money
    MultiPlan in debt talks with some holders as stock price slumps
    Most Popular
    1
    Kaiser, Humana, UnitedHealth reap big Medicare Advantage bonuses
    2
    Why Medicare Advantage plans are losing more providers
    3
    Humana to depart 13 Medicare Advantage markets
    4
    Kaiser Permanente to exit skilled nursing business
    5
    What California's AI bills mean for healthcare