CMS to Raise IPF PPS Payment Rates by 2% in 2022
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said it will update payment rates for IPFs by 2.0% next year in the fiscal year (FY) 2022 Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Prospective Payment System (IPF PPS) final rule the agency released Thursday.
The calculation is based on the final IPF market basket estimate of 2.7% less a 0.7 percentage point productivity adjustment. CMS said it will also update the outlier threshold to maintain outlier payments at 2% of total payments, which will result in a 0.1% overall increase to aggregate payments.
CMS said it estimates total payments to IPFs to increase by 2.1%, or about $80 million, in 2022 compared with payments in 2021.
The final rule also made updates to the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting Program (IPF QRP), including a final proposal to adopt the Covid-19 Vaccination Coverage Among Healthcare Personnel (HCP) measure to the IPF QRP for the FY 2023 payment determination. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the process measure to track Covid-19 vaccination coverage among HCP in IPFs. The measure will be reported using the Covid-19 Modules on the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network web portal.
In addition, the final rule said that for the FY 2024 payment determination, CMS is finalizing its proposal to adopt the Follow-up After Psychiatric Hospitalization (FAPH) measure to the IPF QRP. This measure uses an expanded cohort based on the Follow-up After Hospitalization for Mental Illness (FUH) measure—which is currently in the IPF QRP—to include patients with substance use disorders.
The final rule also said CMS is not finalizing removal of the Alcohol Use Brief Intervention Provided or Offered and Alcohol Use Brief Intervention (SUB-2/2a) measure or the Tobacco Use Treatment Provided or Offered and Tobacco Use Treatment (TOB-2/2a) measure. This was a response to public comments that indicated these measures still provide benefits that outweigh the costs of retaining them in the IPF QRP measure set.
More information is available in the agency’s
fact sheet, and the final rule will be published in the
Federal Register on Wednesday, Aug. 4.
NABH and Other Advocacy Groups Urge Congress to Invest in Children’s Mental Health
NABH and more than two dozen other advocacy organizations sent a
letter to Senate leaders this week urging federal lawmakers to invest more funding in children’s mental health.
The letter recommended that Congress strengthen Medicaid; extend and preserve telehealth flexibilities; strengthen systems of care through better coordination and integration; invest in infrastructure to promote care in the appropriate setting; and support growing the pediatric mental health workforce.
The Children’s Hospital Association spearheaded the letter, and other organizations that signed on include the American Academy of Family Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Hospital Association, the American Association of Medical Colleges, Mental Health America, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
CMS to Host Webinar on Price Transparency on Wednesday, Aug. 11
CMS will host a Medicare National Stakeholder Webinar on Price Transparency to discuss how hospitals can meet the requirements of the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule that became effective on Jan. 1, 2021.
As a result of the rule, U.S. hospitals are required to 1) provide publicly accessible standard charge information online about the items and services with a comprehensive machine-readable file with all items and services, and 2) a display of 300 shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format.
The agency will review the document “8 Steps to a Machine-Readable File of All Items & Services” and highlight both good and bad examples of hospital compliance.
CMS will host the webinar on Wednesday, Aug. 11 from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Click
here to register.
SAMHSA Resource Summarizes How States Regulate Underage Drinking
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Resources Administration (SAMHSA) has released
Learn the Law: How Does Your State Prevent Underage Drinking?, a new publication that includes 24 legal policy summaries to help people track how states regulate underage drinking as a way to help inform prevention work.
Reminder: NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Open to Members
NABH’s Denial-of-Care Portal is a new resource for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.
NABH’s Managed Care Committee worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard for parity or the effects on patients.
This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.
The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.
Please e-mail
Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.
Register Today for the NABH 2021 Annual Meeting!
Registration is open for the NABH 2021 Annual Meeting from Wednesday, Oct. 6 – Friday, Oct. 8, 2021 at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, DC.
We hope you join us as we recognize our meeting theme,
Expanding Access: Right Care. Right Setting. Right Time.
Please visit our Annual Meeting
webpage to register for the meeting and to reserve your hotel room. We look forward to seeing you in Washington!
Fact of the Week
Regardless of the primary medical risk factors for severe Covid-19, patients with mental illness were more likely to die of Covid-19 than their peers, according to new
research consisting of 16 observational studies from seven countries that involved more than 19,000 patients.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.
