Medicare fee payments for outpatient care to go up 1.9 percent; payments for home health will drop

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also released the 2012 Medicare payment rates for dialysis facilities.

Bloomberg: Hospitals To See 1.9 % Jump In Medicare Outpatient Fees In 2012
Hospital operators such as Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC) will get higher federal payments for emergency room visits, diagnostic imaging and other outpatient services in 2012 under U.S. rules. Medicare payments for outpatient services will rise 1.9 percent to $41 billion and dialysis clinics, cancer centers and ambulatory surgery facilities also are scheduled to receive modest fee increases from the U.S. health program for the elderly and disabled under regulations issued yesterday.  "This is marginally good news, but it is certainly not a game changer by any stretch of the imagination," said Arthur Henderson, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. Inc. in Nashville (Eisenberg and Wayne, 11/2).

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Medicare Cuts Home Health Pay
Medicare will cut payment rates to home health agencies by 2.3 percent in 2012 -; the sixth consecutive annual decrease in fees to the industry. The decision, which will lop off an estimated $430 million from the program next year, follows concerns by a congressional advisory panel that the agencies are overpaid (Galewitz, 11/1).

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Will Boost Dialysis Pay 2.1%
Dialysis facilities paid under the end-stage renal disease, or ESRD, prospective payment system will see an overall increase of 2.1 percent in their Medicare payment rates in 2012, which the CMS estimates should total about $8.3 billion in payments. The payment update reflects a marketbasket increase of 3 percent minus a productivity adjustment of 0.9 percent, according to the CMS, which issued a final rule for the ESRD payment system late Tuesday (Zigmond, 11/1).