Becker's ASC Review

72 CODING & BILLING Looking to improve supply usage in your ASC? Contact Us continuumsales@deroyal.com Inventory Optimization* 25 % Reduction in Manual Labor* 80 % Usage Capture Accuracy* 99.8 % *Values can vary based on facility Continuum ® OSCAR ™ is a smart trash receptacle with RFID technology that is used in procedure areas for simplified, accurate supply capture at the point of use. www.deroyal.com Continuum, Oscar, the DeRoyal logo and the Continuum logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of DeRoyal Industries, Inc. | Copyright© 2018, DeRoyal. All rights reserved. Is CMS committed to site-neutral payments? What the proposed 2019 OPPS may indicate for ASCs By Laura Dyrda C MS aims to take a step closer to site-neutral payments for outpatient procedures with the 2019 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System. e agency released its proposed rule in July, addressing the pay- ment gap between sites of service. e new rule takes aim at payments for clinic visits, reducing the payment rate for hospital outpatient clinic visits provided at off-campus provider-based departments to 40 percent of the OPPS rate. e rule does not directly tackle the payment gap between ASCs and HOPDs. However, the new rule would align the payment rate update factors for ASCs and HOPDs by moving ASCs to the hospital market basket to update payments from 2019 to 2023. "We are grateful that CMS, aer years of urging by ASCA, is proposing to measure in- flation in ASCs by using the hospital market basket," said Ambulatory Surgery Center As- sociation CEO Bill Prentice in a statement. "ASCs use the same staff, services and sup- plies as hospital outpatient departments, so it only makes sense to apply the same inflation rate for our yearly update." e proposed rule would provide a 2.8 percent inflation update for both ASCs and HOPDs, but the reduction rates mandated by the ACA would be different based on ACA mandated reductions. e effective updates for ASCs would be 2 percent and for HOPDs would be 1.25 percent. e conversion factor for ASCs is $46.50 and for HOPDs the conversion factor is $79.546. In its statement about the proposed payment update, CMS said this change would "help ensure that ASCs remain competitive by stabilizing the differential between ASC pay- ment rates and hospital outpatient depart- ment rates." Where the agency will head in terms of closing the gap between ASC and HOPD pay- ment is an "open question," said Mr. Prentice, but it's more likely the HOPD rate would drop to the ASC rate instead of the reverse. During remarks at the Commonwealth Club of California July 25, CMS Administrator Seema Verma made remarks on the health- care system, and addressed the agency's commitment to lowering costs through di- recting care to the appropriate site of service. "Medicare pays for things differently based on the site of care, paying more or less for the same service but at different locations," she said. "Now sometimes it makes sense, as some facilities provide a higher level of

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