Hospitals will see a slight increase in Medicare payments in 2014 announced the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in a final rule released Friday.
The final FY 2014 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) rule will increase rates by 0.7 percent, for an estimated $1.2 billion total overall payments to hospitals.
[See also: IPPS/LTCH final rule issued by CMS]
According to a CMS press release, the rate increase is impacted by a temporary reduction of 0.8 percent to implement the American Taxpayer Relief Act’s requirement to recoup overpayments from prior years and an additional 0.2 percent reduction to offset projected spending increases associated with changes to admission and medical review criteria for inpatient services.
The rule includes an initial market basket update of 2.5 percent for those hospitals that submit data on quality measures, while hospitals not submitting data will receive a 0.5 percent update.
The rule also implements the Affordable Care Act-mandated Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital reductions, which will reduce overall Medicare DSH spending by about $550 million in FY 2014, as opposed to the proposed $1 billion cut. As proposed, CMS will use inpatient days of Medicaid beneficiaries plus inpatient days of Medicare supplemental security income beneficiaries as a proxy for measuring the amount of uncompensated care each hospital provides.
CMS’ press release also noted that it projects payments to long-term care hospitals would increase by 1.3 percent, or approximately $72 million, in 2014.
[See also: Final CMS rule adds 'never events' that Medicare won't pay for]