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Health Agency Drops 1,832 Page Rule On Holiday Weekend

Health Agency Drops 1,832 Page Rule On Holiday Weekend

A piggy bank with a ban aid on it and a stethoscope. (Flickr image by 401(K) 2012)

The Department of Health And Human Services dropped an 1,832 page rule late Friday afternoon on Easter weekend.

The rule is a proposal to revise the Acute Inpatient Payment Systems (IPPS), which lays out a system for payments for acute care patients staying in hospitals under Medicare Part (A). Under the program, every patient is broken up into group based on their diagnoses, called “diagnoses-related groups (DGR).” DGRs are then assigned a level of payment, based upon the average cost of treatment for a Medicare patient in that group.

A few of the proposed reforms would implement statutory provisions included in previous legislative efforts under the Obama administration, like the Improving Medicare Post Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014. Others changes would be focused on the provider-based status, like the Indian Health Service.

The Daily Caller News Foundation plans to analyze the rule in greater depth in the coming days.

HHS suggests that concerned citizens contact the department via post, email, express or overnight mail or by hand or courier.

The full text of the proposal can be found here.

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