CMS has issued its 2019 Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule, containing highly anticipated new reimbursement policies for telehealth, remote monitoring, and other uses of digital tools, as well as updates to health IT requirements in the Quality Payment Program, with a stronger focus on patient access to health information. Comments are due September 10 at 5pm.
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Quality Payment Program
New Reimbursement for Remote Patient Monitoring and Telemedicine
By Jodi G. Daniel & Maya Uppaluru on
CMS announced important changes to Medicare reimbursement for remote patient monitoring and telemedicine that can help accelerate adoption and use of these digital health tools. These changes are implemented through two rules released this week that will take effect January 1, 2018. Understanding these rules can help you incorporate these tools into clinical practice and can positively affect the business model for technology developers and innovators.
What are these new rules and do they affect me?
The 2018 Quality Payment Program Final Rule provides policy updates to the Quality Payment Program (QPP), which was established by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) and will be entering its second year. MACRA offers two “tracks” for eligible clinicians to take as they move toward value-based care:
- Participation in QPP and its scoring, or
- Participation in an Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM).
The majority of Medicare payments are still tied to fee-for-service, but HHS has set a goal of moving to 50 percent of Medicare payments for alternative payment models by 2018. For previous coverage of QPP proposals, visit our summary here.
The 2018 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule addresses revised payment policies for the Medicare physician fee schedule. Any provisions in the PFS rule typically apply to fee-for-service type providers.
Continue Reading New Reimbursement for Remote Patient Monitoring and Telemedicine