• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

CMS: No new specialty hospital facilities for rest of the year

Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, May 17, 2005

CMS will not approve any new specialty-hospital applications this year so the agency can continue to determine whether it will make changes to payment rules for the facilities.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Mark McClellan, the administrator of CMS, said CMS will stop processing the applications that are needed for Medicare reimbursement. The specialty-hospital industry had hoped that a moratorium on facility construction and expansion, in place since 2003, would end in June.

"We're obviously concerned with anything that would put the brakes on the industry and keep people from making legitimate investments," said Randy Fenninger, the Washington representative of the American Surgical Hospital Association, according to the WSJ.

CMS will continue to analyze whether specialty hospitals should qualify for the higher Medicare payment hospitals receive by determining whether specialty hospitals meet Medicare's definition of a hospital. The process, according to the WSJ, is expected to continue till Jan. 2006.

The hospital industry was pleased with the news. "It's a useful breather that will eliminate any ambiguity about the policy between now and the end of the year," said Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, according to the WSJ.

The announcement was made by McClellan at a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's health subcommittee.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive