On April 27, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems (IPPS) for Acute Care Hospitals and the Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective Payment System (PPS) Proposed Rule.
Don’t Forgot to Submit a Formal Comment
Comments on the FY 2022 IPPS and LTCH PPS Proposed Rule are due no later than 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, June 28, 2021. The public can submit comments in several ways:
•By regular mail;
•By express or overnight mail; or
•Electronically: Through the “submit a comment” instructions on the Federal Register.
Please review the proposed rule for specific instructions for each method and submit comments by one method only.
More Information on the FY 2022 IPPS and LTCH PPS Proposed Rule
Proposed changes to the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program include, but are not limited to:
•Maintaining a continuous 90-day EHR reporting period for new and returning participants (eligible hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals [CAHs]) in the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program for calendar years (CY) 2022 and 2023, and transitioning to a continuous 180-day EHR reporting period beginning in CY 2024 for all new and returning program participants;
•Increasing the available bonus points for the Electronic Prescribing Objective’s Query of Prescription Drug Monitoring Program measure from 5 points to 10 points;
•Updating the Provide Patients Electronic Access to their Health Information measure to require hospitals and CAHs to maintain electronic health information from encounters on or after January 1, 2016;
•Adopting the Health Information Exchange Bi-Directional Exchange measure (worth 40 points) as part of the Health Information Exchange Objective as an alternative to the 2 existing measures;
•Requiring reporting on 4 of the Public Health and Clinical Data Exchange Objective measures: Syndromic Surveillance Reporting; Immunization Registry Reporting; Electronic Case Reporting; and Electronic Reportable Laboratory Result Reporting, which is worth up to 10 points;
oThe Public Health Registry Reporting and Clinical Data Registry Reporting measures will remain optional and available for a total of 5 bonus points.
•Requiring eligible hospitals and CAHs to attest to having completed an annual assessment via a SAFER Guides measure, under the Protect Patient Health Information objective, beginning January 1, 2022;
•Removing attestation statements 2 and 3 from the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program’s prevention of information blocking requirement;
•Increasing the minimum scoring threshold from 50 points to 60 points;
•Adopting 2 new electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) beginning with the reporting period in CY 2023, and removing 4 eCQMs beginning with the reporting period in CY 2024; and
•Requiring use of the 2015 Edition Cures Update beginning in CY 2023 for all available eCQMs. To learn more about the 2015 Edition Cures Update, please review ONC’s 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule.
For More Information
Review fact sheet on the proposed rule. To view the proposed rule (CMS-1752-P), please visit the Federal Register.
