The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a final rule on home health payment that includes a 2.0 percent market basket update to Medicare’s CY10 home health prospective payment system rates and a 2.75 percent coding reduction. The CY10 reduction is the third of four reductions authorized in a prior rule. In other provisions of the rule, CMS will cap home health outlier payments at 10 percent per home health agency and target total aggregate outlier payments at 2.5 percent of total payments. The current target for aggregate outlier payments is 5 percent of total expenditures.
The final rule will be published in the Federal Register on Nov. 10, 2009. The effective date is Jan. 1, 2010.
