CMS issues corrections to FY 2017 inpatient/LTCH final rule

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Friday issued a correction notice to the fiscal year 2017 inpatient and long-term care hospital prospective payment system final rule, which corrects errors and inadvertent omissions of several diagnosis and procedure codes related to the FY 2017 Medicare Severity-Diagnosis Related Group and MS-Long-Term Care-DRG updates. For the inpatient PPS, the corrections slightly decrease operating and capital rates; reduce almost all wage indexes; slightly lower uncompensated care adjustments (factor 3) for most hospitals receiving Disproportionate Share Hospital payments; and increase the outlier fixed-loss threshold from $23,570 to $23,573. The revisions also required CMS to recalculate all of the budget neutrality factors. For the LTCH PPS, CMS made corrections to the MS-LTC-DRG table, and modified the outlier fixed-loss amount for LTCH site-neutral cases to align with the fixed-loss amount in the inpatient PPS ($23,573). AHA continues to review the notice and will provide more information to members if necessary.