Numerous proposals and discussions regarding the Stark Law are included in the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Proposed Rule that CMS released April 14, 2008.

An analysis of the Stark Law-related items covered in the IPPS Proposed Rule was published by law firm McDermott Will & Emery and highlights the following items that CMS addresses:
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A May 5 article in the Daytona Beach News-Journal provided an interesting illustration of how medical errors impact the population in Florida:

Health care killed 212 Floridians last year. Eighty-two others in 2007 had to have surgery to remove a foreign object left in during a previous surgery. Another 140 had a surgical procedure unrelated to their diagnosis, according to reports amassed at the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration from the state’s 291 hospitals.

The article makes the illustration to ponder the question: How will Florida hospitals be impacted after Oct. 1, 2008 when Medicare quits paying for specific hospital-acquired conditions and medical errors? According to the article, Medicare pays 44 percent of the hospital bills throughout Florida, and a significantly higher percentage of inpatient bills at some individual hospitals.
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ICD-9-CM procedure code proposals and status updates on the industry’s transition to ICD-10 were discussed in detail at the ICD-9-CM Coordination and Maintenance (C&M) Committee’s Spring meeting in Baltimore, Md., March 19-20, 2008.

Day one of the C&M meeting was conducted by CMS staff and featured presentations on ICD-9-CM procedure code and device proposals. The CMS staff outlined code options and the audience was invited to ask follow-up questions and comment on the proposals.
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Expansion of the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) Program is facing opposition on several fronts. Industry associations and members of Congress support a delay until findings from the first pilot program can be evaluated, according to Ingenix Industry Insight 461 that was published this month.

Efforts to delay the expansion of the program include the introduction of legislation HR 4105 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Referred to as the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor Moratorium Act, this bill was introduced in November 2007 and seeks to impose a one-year moratorium on the expansion of the program. HR 4105 continues to gain support within the House of Representatives. There are currently 77 co-sponsors of the legislation.
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