Yesterday CMS issued a final rule that includes updates to payment policies, payment rates, and quality provisions for services furnished under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) on or after January 1, 2018. The overall update to payments under the PFS based on the finalized CY 2018 rates will be +0.41 percent. This update reflects the +0.50 percent update established under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, reduced by 0.09 percent, due to the misvalued code target recapture amount, required under the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act of 2014. After applying these adjustments, and the budget neutrality adjustment to account for changes in Relative Value Units, all required by law, the final 2018 PFS conversion factor is . 99, an increase to the 2017 PFS conversion factor of $35.89. The Final Rule Includes:
- Patients over Paperwork Initiative
- Changes in valuation for specific services
- Payment rates for nonexcepted off-campus provider-based hospital departments
- Medicare telehealth services
- Malpractice relative value units
- Care management services
- Improvement of payment rates for office-based behavioral health services
- Evaluation and management comment solicitation
- Emergency department visits comment solicitation
- Solicitation of public comments on initial data collection and reporting periods for Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule
- Part B drugs: Payment for biosimilar biological products
- Part B drug payment: Infusion drugs furnished through an item of durable medical equipment
- New care coordination services and payment for rural health clinics and federally-qualified health centers
- Appropriate use criteria for advanced diagnostic imaging
- Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program expanded model
- Physician Quality Reporting System
- Patient relationship codes
- Medicare Shared Savings Program
- 2018 Value Modifier
For More Information:
See the full text of this excerpted CMS Fact Sheet (issued November 2).
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