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CMS Regulations Archives

August 7, 2009. It was announced this week that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be restoring the $1.5 million cut to Capital Indirect Graduate Medical Education (IME) in FY2010 (starting October 1). CMS released the final Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems (IPPS) rule this past week. Originally, the proposed rule included the 100% reduction to this fund. VCU has worked with our Congressional delegation as well as CMS on this issue over the past two years.

May 15, 2009. Fifty-six senators yesterday asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to withdraw a proposed payment cut to teaching hospitals scheduled to take effect October 1 under the proposed inpatient prospective payment system rule. The rule would phase out the indirect medical education adjustment paid to teaching hospitals for their capital expenditures. Senator Mark Warner’s signature was included on the letter.

May 8, 2009. On May 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its hospital inpatient and long-term care prospective payment system proposed rule for FY 2010. The rule proposed a 1.9 percent cut to eliminate what CMS claims is the effect of coding or classification changes the agency says do not reflect real changes in case-mix. In total, this proposal would cut $1.9 billion for FY 2010 and $22.1 billion over 10 years. Due to the coding offset cut, with other policy changes, hospitals will see their FY 2010 payments decrease by 0.5 percent on average compared to FY 2009.

In this rule, CMS also reiterates that it will eliminate the adjustment for capital indirect medical education (IME) for FY 2010 and beyond. Although Congress retroactively prevented CMS from reducing the IME adjustment to capital payments by 50 percent in FY 2009, it did not prevent the agency from going forward with its already-finalized plan to eliminate the IME adjustment completely in FY 2010. The elimination of this payment would result in a loss to VCUHS of approximately $1.5 million annually. VCU is working with our Congressional delegation to sign on to a letter to the acting CMS Administrator to halt these cuts.

If you have questions, contact Don Gehring (dcgehrin@vcu.edu) or Mark Smith (mesmith@vcu.edu). Our office phone number is: 804-828-1235.

Virginia Commonwealth University | Government Relations
Date Last Modified: June 30, 2008
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