News Alert: CMS Releases 2024 IPPS Final Rule

While most observers of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the release Wednesday of its final payment rule for inpatient and long-term care hospitals, caught many off-guard, expecting that the venerable agency would post its final rule on Friday, an expected custom by CMS.

Nonetheless, the final rule is here and appears to support underserved and under-resourced communities.

The fiscal year (FY) 2024 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective Payment System (PPS) final rule updates Medicare payments and policies for hospitals as required by statute. The rule also adopts hospital quality measures to “foster safety, equity, and reduce preventable harm in the hospital setting; and recognizes homelessness as an indicator of increased resource utilization in the acute inpatient hospital setting,” CMS said in its announcement Wednesday.

CMS said the final rule is consistent with the “Administration’s goal of advancing health equity for all, including members of historically underserved and under-resourced communities, as described in the President’s January 20, 2021, Executive Order 13985 on ‘Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.’”

According to CMS, the final rule also addresses payments for acute care hospitals paid under the IPPS that “successfully participate in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and are meaningful electronic health record (EHR) users.

“The final rule will result in an increase in operating payment rates of 3.1 percent. This reflects an FY 2024 projected hospital market basket update of 3.3 percent, reduced by a statutorily required productivity adjustment of a 0.2 percentage point. Under the LTCH PPS, CMS expects payments in FY 2024 to increase by approximately 0.2 percent or $6 million.”

Additional information on the 2024 final rule is available here:

• For a fact sheet on the final payment rule visit: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/fy-2024-hospital-inpatient-prospective-payment-system-ipps-and-long-term-care-hospital-prospective-0

• The FY 2024 IPPS/LTCH PPS final rule can be downloaded from the Federal Register at: https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2023-16252/medicare-program-hospital-inpatient-prospective-payment-systems-for-acute-care-hospitals-and-the

Programming note: ICD10monitor is producing a three-day educational webcast series on the 2024 IPPS final rule, Aug. 15, 16 and 17. Laurie Johnson and Erica Remer, MD, are scheduled to report on the new code changes.