July 31st, 2019

2020 Proposed Medicare Payment Rule Released

On July 29, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed policies that follow directives in President Trump’s Executive Order, entitled “Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First,” that lay the foundation for a patient-driven healthcare system by making prices for items and services provided by all hospitals in the United States more transparent for patients so that they can be more informed about what they might pay for hospital items and services.

The proposed changes also encourage site-neutral payment between certain Medicare sites of services. Finally, the proposed rule proposes updates and policy changes under the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System. The full fact sheet can be found here.

The full proposed rule can be viewed here.