1. Proposed Rule CMS-1243-P
Title: Medicare Program; Proposed Change in Methodology for Determining Payment for Extraordinarily High-Cost Cases (Cost Outliers) Under the Acute Care Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System
Publication Date: 03/05/2003
Description: In this proposed rule, we are proposing to change the methodology for determining payments for extraordinarily high-cost cases (cost outliers) made to Medicare-participating hospitals under the acute care hospital inpatient prospective payment system.
Under the existing outlier methodology, the cost-to-charge ratios from hospitals' latest settled cost reports are used in determining a fixed-loss amount cost outlier threshold. We have become aware that, in some cases, hospitals' recent rates of charge increases greatly exceed their rates of cost increases. This disparity results in their cost-to-charge ratios being set too high, which in turn results in an overestimation of their current costs per case. Therefore, we need to make revisions to our outlier payment methodology to correct those situations in which hospitals would otherwise receive overpayments for outlier cases due to excessive charge increases.
2. Final Rule CMS-1243-F
Title: Medicare Program; Change in Methodology for Determining Payment for Extraordinarily High-Cost Cases (Cost Outliers) Under the Acute Care Hospital Inpatient and Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment Systems
Publication Date: 06/09/2003
Description: In this final rule, we are revising the methodology for determining payments for extraordinarily high-cost cases (cost outliers) made to Medicare-participating hospitals under the acute care hospital inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS).
Under the existing outlier methodology, the cost-to-charge ratios from hospitals' latest settled cost reports are used in determining a fixed-loss amount cost outlier threshold. We have become aware that, in some cases, hospitals' recent rate-of-charge increases greatly exceed their rate-of-cost increases. Because there is a time lag between the cost-to-charge ratios from the latest settled cost report and current charges, this disparity in the rate-of-increases for charges and costs results in cost-to-charge ratios that are too high, which in turn results in an overestimation of hospitals' current costs per case. Therefore, we are revising our outlier payment methodology to ensure that outlier payments are made only for truly expensive cases.
We also are revising the methodology used to determine payment for high-cost outlier and short-stay outlier cases that are made to Medicare-participating long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) under the long- term care hospital prospective payment system (LTCH PPS). The policies for determining outlier payment under the LTCH PPS are modeled after the outlier payment policies under the IPPS.