Inpatient

Learn more about various articles and information regarding the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS)

Outpatient

On August 31, 2010 the Heart Rhythm Society submitted comments on the 2011 hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) proposed rule to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS released the proposed rule on July 2, which would update the policies and payment rates for services furnished in hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery centers for the year 2011. This proposed rule would also implement applicable statutory requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. View the highlight of the proposed rule »

The comments focused on those aspects of the proposed rule that are of interest to Society members:

Composite APC's for CRT Services

Regarding Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT), the Society continues to support the creation of composite APC's for both CRT-D and CRT-P procedures; and urged CMS to evaluate the implication of creating new composite APCs and report its finding to the APC Panel in time to consider the Panel's advice for FY2012 rule making cycle.

Read the Society's full comment letter on composite APC's »(PDF, 160K)

Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program

Availability of Subspecialty Performance Measures
There are currently only a limited number of performance measures in this program that measure heart rhythm care. While the Society understands the agency's sensitivity to add additional burden on hospitals by adding performance measures, the Society recommends that CMS carefully consider the availability of measures in this program for sub-specialty care.

Support of Measure for Future Consideration
The Society strongly supports the addition of the measure, "Counseling regarding Implantable Cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation for patients with Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction on combination medical therapy" for future adoption into the HOP QRDP measure sets.

Alignment of PQRI and other CMS Quality Improvement Initiatives
To reduce burden and avoid duplicative reporting, the Society recommends that CMS coordinate and align all provider-based and physician-level reporting, meaningful use requirements, and electronic prescribing program requirements. The Society also concurs with CMS' consistent support of registries as an excellent opportunity for data collection and its efforts to reduce the burden of data collection by utilizing existing registries.

Read the Society's full comment letter on the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program (PDF, 124K)