On August 2, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final federal fiscal year (FFY) 2020 payment rule for the Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS). Program changes are effective for discharges on or after October 1, 2019 unless otherwise noted.
The final rule reflects the annual updates to the Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) inpatient payment rates and policies. In addition to the regular updates to wage indexes and market basket, this rule includes:
- A rate increase amount (+0.5%) for the Coding Offset adjustment;
- Changes intended to reduce the growing disparity between high-and-low-wage index hospitals;
- Changes to LUGAR county CBSA assignments;
- Updates to the Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payment policies;
- Updates to the program rules for the Value-Based Purchasing (VBP), Readmission Reduction Program (RRP) and Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) programs; and
- Updates to the payment penalties for non-compliance with the Hospital IQR and Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs.
A copy of the final rule and other resources related to the IPPS are available on the CMS website.
An online version of the rule will be available at on August 16, 2019.
In the coming weeks, the SDAHO will distribute an updated hospital-specific impact analysis and additional details of the final rule.
