Medicare

The 2020 year-end package that passed the House and Senate Monday (Dec. 21) includes a number of policies aimed at improving hospice care, and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization says the bill will help provide uninterrupted access to hospice providers during the pandemic -- though the group will closely watch how the program integrity provisions are implemented.

Drug makers are largely unscathed by the year-end government spending bill because Congress instead used hospital surprise billing legislation to pay for coronavirus relief, but the legislative package does include proposals that were part of drug price transparency bills, including one to give congressional Medicare and Medicaid advisers data on closely guarded rebates.

Federal Judge Catherine Blake said Friday she will rule by Dec. 24 on whether to put on hold the Trump administration’s plan to tie Medicare Part B reimbursement to foreign drug prices.

The House on Friday evening (Dec. 18) passed a two-day stopgap continuing resolution that gives lawmakers the weekend to hammer out the details of a year-end package that wraps together spending and pandemic relief measures, and possibly also surprise billing legislation, health extenders and other key health policies.

As lawmakers continue to negotiate a year-end package, hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and home health providers are urging them to extend the moratorium on the 2% Medicare sequester cuts through the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency -- but some lobbyists say getting such an extension could be an uphill battle.

CMS has pushed back the deadline for doctors to apply for extreme and uncontrollable circumstances exceptions from the Merit-based Incentive Payment System to Feb. 1, and is reminding providers that that process can include a request to leave out one or more performance categories from their score due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Trump administration on Tuesday (Dec. 15) asked a federal judge to reject the drug industry’s request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the most-favored nation drug pricing demonstration.

CMS is laying out plans for a demonstration next year that will require inpatient rehabilitation facilities to submit their Medicare fee-for-service claims for pre-pay or post-pay review until they can show they have a good track record of correctly submitting claims, according to a notice published in the Federal Register Tuesday (Dec. 15).

Former HHS Secretaries Donna Shalala and Kathleen Sebelius expressed confidence that President-elect Joe Biden’s HHS pick, Xavier Becerra, will gain enough bipartisan support to be confirmed, stressing that even though the California attorney general is a strong proponent of Medicare for All, he is a team player who will be dedicated to the less-aggressive policy of shoring up and building off the Affordable Care Act per Biden’s approach.