Medicare Rates Released for 2011

On November 2, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2011 final rule for payments to ASCs and hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs). CMS will continue to use the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers to update ASC payments, and ASCs will receive a 0.2% increase after taking into account the inflationary increase to the update factor and decrease resulting from the productivity adjustment mandated by healthcare reform. While disappointing, this is an improvement over the 0% change previously proposed.

Advocacy groups representing the ASC industry have made progress in bringing ASC awareness to our policy makers and educating members of Congress about the benefits of ASCs. The most recent achievement of these groups was delivering a letter cosigned by 32 U.S. House members and 21 U.S. Senators urging the administrator of CMS to follow suggestions proposed by the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC).

Click on the links below for additional information and files on the 2011 payment rule:

CMS-1504-F   2011 Final Payment Rule from CMS 
Additional information  provided by the ASC Association
House letter  Letter cosigned by 32 members of the House of Representatives
Senate letter  Letter cosigned by 21 members of the US Senate
Additional letters  Letters written by additional members of Congress