WHA Comments on CMS Proposed IPPS Rule
Price transparency, removing duplicative quality measures and reforming EHR
On June 25, the Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA) submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on the proposed FY 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) rule for acute care and long-term care hospitals.
Among the list of topics covered were CMS efforts to promote hospital price transparency, removing and deduplicating various quality measures, and reforming the electronic health record (EHR) meaningful use program into a new program highlighting flexibility and interoperability.
- WHA highlighted its PricePoint website (www. wipricepoint.org), which provides complete, accurate and timely inpatient and outpatient data about charges and services provided by Wisconsin hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. WHA recommended CMS recognize Wisconsin and other states’ efforts to provide this information before adding unnecessary regulations that would increase hospitals’ administrative burden.
- WHA’s comments supported CMS proposals to remove duplicative measures from its Meaningful Measures framework for Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting IQR, Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction, Hospital-Wide Readmissions Reduction, and Hospital Value-Based Purchasing programs.
- Finally, WHA also provided comments to CMS proposals to reform the meaningful use program for electronic health records (EHR) to one promoting interoperability and flexibility. WHA recommended changes that align with the Trump administration’s stated goals of minimizing the regulatory burden on hospitals so that any additional EHR requirements lead to health care cost savings and improvements in patient outcomes.
Read WHA’s comment letter at
www.wha.org/ pdf/2018WHAFY19-IPPS-Proposed-Rule-Comments.pdf.
This story originally appeared in the June 26, 2018 edition of WHA Newsletter