CMS corrects Final Rule errors

On October 2, CMS published a notice last week to correct errors in the FY2008 IPPS Final Rule. The errors resulted from a mistake in the calculation of hospital-specific rates for sole community and Medicare dependent hospitals. Changing these rates affected the budget neutrality factors, which are used to derive other variables. As a result of this error, CMS was forced to recalculate the standardized amounts, the outlier threshold, the waged indices, and other variables used for IPPS reimbursement.

The correction notice includes the following revisions:

• Updates of many of the major data tables published at the end of the Final Rule, including Tables 1A-1D, 2, 4A-4C, 9Q, 9C and 10
• Decrease in the outlier threshold from $22,635 to $22,460
• Revisions of various budget neutrality and update factors
• Corrections of technical and typographical errors
• Updated Impact Analysis tables

The official version of the document is scheduled to appear in the Federal Register Oct. 10. However, because Congress passed and the President signed a bill to limit Medicare’s base rate reductions, some of the tables in the correction must again be updated by CMS. Presumably, another correction notice or transmittal will follow.