House Passes Six Month Doc Fix

The House finally gave in and passed the 6 month “Doc Fix” after the Senate failed to pass the Tax Extenders Bill (H.R. 4213) for the third time yesterday. The House was using the “Doc Fix” as leverage and pushing for passage of the Tax Extenders Bill.

The legislative action will undo the 21.3% decrease that took place on June 1.  The action includes a retroactive 2.2% increase to the fee screen starting June 1st through November 30, 2010. The President is expected to sign the bill soon.

The following items that are important to the LTC industry are stuck at this point in the Tax Extenders Bill; the reinstatement of the Oct. 1, 2010 RUG IV Regulation and the Medicaid provision to increase the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) to states. It is anticipated that both of these items will find support in other bills if the Tax Extenders Bill does not move forward.

LTCREHAB

June 23 CMS Call on RUGs-IV Medicare Payment System

This first conference call on SNF PPS will focus on an overview of SNF PPS. CMS will provide the history of RUGs and review the requirements of SNF coverage. In addition, CMS will discuss the look back implications for several MDS 3.0 items, the impact and coding of concurrent therapy and a brief discussion on group therapy.

Moderator Information
Moderator: Geanelle Griffith, Health Insurance Specialist
Organization: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Presenter Information
Speakers: Sheila Lambowitz, Director, and Ellen Berry, Health Insurance Specialist
Organization: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Register Here: http://www.eventsvc.com/palmettogba/register/3e3c0157-011c-46b7-9ebd-7703f3515599

Senate won’t consider tax extenders before leaving for recess – The Hill’s On The Money

Senate won’t consider tax extenders before leaving for recess – The Hill’s On The Money. – By Vicki Needham – 05/27/10 07:34 PM ET

The Senate won’t act on the tax extenders package until after the Memorial Day recess but is expected to wrap up work on a $58.8 billion war supplemental tonight but

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he expects to receive the tax cuts and social spending package from the House in pieces on Friday and wanted to spend some time looking over the bills before acting, meaning unemployment benefits and COBRA insurance will expire. He expects to take up the legislation on Monday, June 7.

Later tonight, after dispensing with the war spending and disaster aid bill, Democrats and Republicans are planning to offer a series of unanimous consent agreements, but objections are expected to be raised in each case.

The House has been working out the final details of the tax extenders measure that started at a cost of $200 billion, shrank to $143 billion over Wednesday night and was slashed again tonight to about $95 billion.

The first House bill would cost $95 billion and would extend unemployment insurance and expired tax breaks and be offset by the foreign tax and carried interest provisions in the original bill.

The second bill would extend the “doc fix,” a term that refers to delaying a cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors.

COBRA health insurance and the federal medical assistance percentage under Medicaid would no longer be part of either package but would probably come up after the recess for a separate vote.

Later in the Senate, Democrats will offer a 14-day, $4 billion extension of expiring programs including unemployment insurance, COBRA, the Medicare “doc fix”, small business loans, flood insurance and poverty guidelines, which isn’t paid for.

Republicans are then expected to offer an alternative, probably based on a bill by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), that would pay for a short-term extension of programs using stimulus money.

Healthcare reform: Is the RUG-IV delay here to stay? – www.hcpro.com

Healthcare reform: Is the RUG-IV delay here to stay? – www.hcpro.com – The healthcare reform bill signed into law by President Obama on March 23 contains a provision that delays the implementation of part of Resource Utilization Group, Version Four (RUG-IV) by a year. RUG-IV was originally scheduled to be implemented alongside the MDS 3.0 in October but the amendment to the healthcare bill will not allow RUG-IV to be implemented before October 1, 2011. However, the law will still implement the RUG-IV changes to concurrent therapy and the look-back period to ensure that only services provided after SNF admission are counted toward RUG placement on October 1 of this year, along with the MDS 3.0.

“Everyone agrees that this glitch needs fixing, though there is not a provision in the reconciliation [bill] to do so, likely because only very selected legislation provisions meet the strict tests required for reconciliation legislation,” says Barbara Manard, vice president of long-term care/health strategies at the American Association of Homes & Services for the Aging (AAHSA). “Efforts are underway to devise an appropriate solution and return to the full implementation as originally planned for October 1, 2010.  At AAHSA, we are advising our member facilities to continue to assume that Oct 1, 2010 is the full implementation date.”

For complete coverage of healthcare reform and its effects on long-term care, please visit MDSCentral.

Hello world!

Welcome to the LTC Rehab blog.  This site is dedicated to providing therapy insights, legislation, and regulatory information concerning rehabilitation services in post acute care settings; skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and Continuing Care Retirement Centers (CCRCs). The information in this site will be useful whether you have your own in-house therapy department our if you use a contract therapy provider.