This article is reposted with permission from Curaspan, an NTOCC Partners Council member, following our "Navigating A Value-Based Market With A Care Transitions Focus" webinar last month.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued two final rules that NTOCC has commented on earlier in the year. The first updates payment policies and payment rates for services furnished under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for calendar year 2016, and the second is regarding the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems and Quality Reporting Programs.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a proposed rule this morning that would require all hospitals and home health agencies to develop a written discharge plan for every inpatient and specific categories of outpatients within 24 hours of admission. This is the first step in the implementation of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act which NTOCC supported in 2014.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is seeking stakeholder input on three provisions in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MARCA): Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), Alternative Payment Models (APMs), and physician-focused payment models.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that it is extending the enforcement moratorium for part of the “two-midnights” rule until the new proposed rule takes effect on January 1, 2016. As you may recall, the “two midnights” rule states that hospital stays that are shorter than two nights would be classified as outpatient. The “two midnights” has been extremely controversial in the NTOCC community, the health care community at large and on Capitol Hill. It creates confusion for the patient and relies on an arbitrary length of time for a patient’s assessment as opposed to the expertise of the health care provider.

NTOCC Partners Council member, Global Transitional Care, was recently featured in an OC Register article on care transitions.

Recently, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) released a proposed rule reforming long term care facilities. As part of a larger reform rule, CMS proposed requirements surrounding documentation as patients transfer in and out of the long term post-acute system. The rule states “We propose to add a new requirement at §483.15(b)(2)(i) that the transferring facility provide necessary information to the resident’s receiving provider, whether it is an acute care hospital, a LTC hospital, a psychiatric facility, another LTC facility, a hospice, home health agency, or another community-based provider or practitioner.” It encourages providers to carefully handle transfers of care and refers them to the NTOCC website for more information and tools.

This morning, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century Cures Initiative (H.R. 6) by a bipartisan vote of 344-77. The House passage comes at the end of a year-and-a-half long effort led by Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and fellow Committee member Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO).

Today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) released its proposed rule for calendar year 2016 that updates and revises payment policies under the Physician Fee Schedule. This is the first physician payment proposed rule since the repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate formula earlier this year and reflects an attempt by CMS to implement the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, the new payment system required by the legislation.

Today, the Energy and Commerce Committee released the final language for the 21st Century Cures Initiative. This bill is similar to what was reported unanimously out of the Energy and Commerce Committee in June 2015. A few changes include reducing the new NIH funding increase from $10 billion to $8.75 billion in mandatory spending over the next five years and finalizing the interoperability language. We expect a vote in the full House of Representatives as early as next Thursday.