On December 14, 2016, CMS issued an interim final rule with comment period to amend Medicare’s dialysis facility conditions for coverage to require certain disclosures to patients and health insurance issuers to address widespread concerns over inappropriate steerage of dialysis patients to individual market plans. After issuing an RFI about “inappropriate steering of people eligible for Medicare or Medicaid into Marketplace plans” by third parties in August 2016, CMS decided to focus on dialysis providers given the “overwhelming majority of comments [received in response to the RFI] focused on patients with [end-stage renal disease (ESRD)]” and “the high costs and absolute necessity of transplantation or dialysis” for people with ESRD.
CMS explained that reimbursement rates for dialysis and other ESRD treatment are “tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars more per patient when patients enroll in individual market coverage rather than public coverage.” As such, providers have strong incentives to steer patients to private coverage and pay a few thousand dollars in premiums on their behalf. But doing so places patients at substantial health and financial risk. As CMS noted, third-party payment of premiums to enroll a patient in individual market coverage may interfere with transplant readiness, expose the patient to substantial financial harm for services beyond dialysis, and may result in mid-year coverage disruption.
To address these concerns, the interim final rule requires Medicare-certified dialysis facilities to disclose the array of costs and coverage options available to a patient, including the availability of Medicaid, Medicare ESRD coverage, and individual market plans, and to ensure that health insurance issuers are aware of and willing to accept a third-party’s payment of premiums on behalf of the patient. As summarized by the CMS Fact Sheet, providers must:
- Make up-front disclosures to patients regarding their health insurance coverage options, including information about available individual market plans, Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage, and available options and costs of Medicare ESRD coverage.
- Provide a summary of short- and long-term cost estimates of various health coverage options for patients and information on enrollment periods for those health coverage options.
- Inform issuers of the individual market plans for which they make payments of premiums for individual market plans.
- Receive assurance from the issuer that it will accept these payment of premiums for individual market plans for the duration of the plan year, or else not make such payments.
The interim final rule does not preclude providers from making charitable donations that support access to health care. CMS also noted that it remains concerned about third-party payment of premiums for persons who are eligible for public coverage, such as Medicaid or Medicare, and is considering whether to issue a blanket prohibition on third-party payment of premiums for such persons. CMS has solicited comments on this and alternative approaches, such as whether to allow third-party payments upon a showing that it was in the individual patient’s best interest. The comment period for the interim final rule closes on January 11, 2017 and the rule is effective on January 13, 2017.