Feb. 4—A new proposed rule would streamline standards hospitals and healthcare providers must meet to participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced. 

The proposed rule would eliminate outdated Medicare regulations, thus allowing healthcare providers to operate more efficiently without jeopardizing beneficiary safety, CMS said. The resulting updates could save nearly $676 million annually and $3.4 billion over five years, CMS claims.

For example, a key provision would reduce the burden on very small critical-access hospitals, as well as rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers, by eliminating the requirement that a physician be held to an excessively prescriptive schedule for being onsite once every two weeks, according to the release. The provision thus would address maintaining high-quality care in remote rural facilities by allowing physicians to provide many types of care at lower costs through telemedicine improvements. 

Publication Date: Monday, February 04, 2013