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CMS proposes inpatient payment rate increase

Quality Improvement Monitor, April 28, 2005

Acute care hospitals that submit data on 10 quality measures in the 2006 fiscal year will receive a 3.2% increase in inpatient service payments, according to a proposed rule from CMS issued April 25.

Hospitals that do not submit data will receive a payment update of 2.8%, according to a CMS press release. Hospitals must correctly abstract and report clinical data and have two consecutive quarters of publishable data to be eligible, CMS said.

More than 3,700 hospitals have signed up to submit data for the 2006 fiscal year, the press release said. In 2005, 98% of the nearly 4,000 acute care hospitals in the United States reported quality data.

CMS is also developing quality measures on reducing hospital-associated infections, according to the agency.

"We're pleased with the strong initial response to tying payment levels to reporting on quality of care," CMS Administrator Mark McClellan said. "We're particularly pleased that many hospitals have gone beyond the minimum quality reporting requirements, and we expect to build on this success in the coming year."

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