HAP Radiology Billing and Coding Blog

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) press release announcing the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) Proposed Rule for 2023 highlights expanded access to behavioral health services, Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), cancer screening, and dental care. Of these areas, cancer screening could be important to radiology practices, but the news was not good – CMS declined to include CT colonography coverage while it expanded coverage for traditional colonoscopy. The MPFS regulates the Medicare fee schedule payment provisions as well as the Quality Payment Program (QPP).

Keeping abreast of the various healthcare rules and regulations from federal and state authorities can sometimes be overwhelming for a practice’s management. Here is a summary of some of the most important regulatory issues to be aware of for next year, along with a few payment policy decisions that are not governmental. The links will take you to our recent articles and other sources that probe each topic in more depth.

Coming a bit earlier in the month than usual, the release of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) Final Rule for 2022 contains few changes from the rule proposed earlier this year. The Proposed Rule reported a 2022 Conversion Factor (CF) of $33.5848 per Relative Value Unit (RVU), but the Final Rule adjusts the figure slightly upward to $33.5983. This is a reduction of 3.71% from the 2021 CF of $34.8931. In addition to this cut, practices will see an additional 2% payment reduction when sequestration resumes on January 1, 2022.

It seems that diagnostic imaging and radiology are often blamed for increasing the cost of healthcare, especially Medicare costs. Not so, says a recent study that was reported in Radiology Business on August 30, 2021.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its proposed changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) for 2022. The Proposed Rule is usually modified somewhat before it becomes the final rule for each year, but it gives an idea of the direction Medicare reimbursement is headed. The Medicare Proposed Rule contains payment policy decisions as well as changes to the Quality Payment Program (QPP).

Based on revised recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is considering an adjustment to its reimbursement policy for LDCT Lung Cancer Screening. CMS expects to complete its decision-making process before February 2022. In the meantime, many commercial payers have already expanded coverage by adopting the new recommendations.

The Quality Payment Program (QPP) continues to be modified due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced some leeway for clinicians affected by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final set of rules that will govern the Medicare payment system for the coming year, thereby affirming the drastic cut in radiology reimbursement for 2021 that was proposed earlier this year.  There were few surprises in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) Final Rule that were not contained in the proposed rule, other than a slight improvement in the fee schedule conversion factor and a change to the QPP Performance Threshold.

The COVID-19 pandemic spawned many programs designed to assist medical practices to stay afloat financially through the duration of the public health emergency. The terms and conditions of many of the various relief programs have changed since they were first introduced, and it often is a challenge to keep up with the latest rules. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has now announced another round of Provider Relief Funding (PRF) and the terms of the Medicare Accelerated and Advanced Payment Program have recently been modified.

Quality Payment Program (QPP) participants can now obtain information about whether their practice will receive a positive, negative, or neutral Medicare fee schedule adjustment in 2021 based on the 2019 data they submitted. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that clinicians who participated in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) in 2019 can access their performance feedback by logging in to the Quality Payment Program website.