IPPS final rule requires electronic quality measure reporting
The final rule for the inpatient prospective payment system for fiscal year 2016, which includes health IT requirements, was released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The rule affects about 3,400 acute-care facilities and will increase FY 2016 Medicare operating payments to acute-care hospitals by 0.9 percent, a slight decline from last year's 1.4 percent raise and from the 1.1 percent increase proposed in April.
The rule also includes a 2.4 percent market-basket update for facilities that were meaningful users of EHRs in FY 2014 and submitted data on quality metrics.
The rule requires hospitals to report four out of 28 clinical quality measurers electronically during calendar year 2016 in order to receive payment in the FY 2018 Inpatient Quality Reporting program. That's a drop from 16 out of the 28 measures over two quarters originally proposed.
The final rule will be published in the Federal Register Aug. 17. Comments on the rule are due Sept. 29, and the rule is effective Oct. 1.
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.