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Tag: Emergency Department (ED)

Update on HHS OIG Reports on Ambulance Services

Written by Kathy Lester on . Posted in Member Advisories, Member-Only, News, Reimbursement.

Update on HHS Office of the Inspector General Reports on Ambulance Services

The HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released an update to the Work Plan as the year comes to a close.  There are no new projects specific to ambulance services, but the update does provide a summary of three projects that have been completed or are in progress.

  • Medicare Part B Payments for Ambulance Services Subject to Part A Skilled Nursing Facility Consolidated Billing Requirements (expected release 2019). In this work, the OIG  seeking to determine whether ambulance services paid by Medicare Part B were subject to Part A SNF consolidated billing requirements. The OIG will also assess the effectiveness of edits in CMS’s Common Working File to prevent and detect Part B overpayments for ambulance transportation subject to consolidated billing. Prior OIG reports have identified high error rates and significant overpayments for services subject to SNF consolidated billing.
  • Ambulance Services – Supplier Compliance with Payment Requirements (partially completed; remainder expected release 2019). Prior OIG work has found that Medicare made inappropriate payments for advanced life support emergency transports. The OIG seeks to determine whether Medicare payments for ambulance services were made in accordance with Medicare requirements. 

The first report of this project found that Medicare made improper payments of $8.7 million to providers for nonemergency ambulance transports to destinations not covered by Medicare, including the identified ground mileage associated with the transports.  The report identified that the majority of the improperly billed claim lines (59 percent) were for transports to diagnostic or therapeutic sites, other than a physician’s office or a hospital, that did not originate from SNFs.

In this report, the OIG recommended that the CMS: (1) direct the Medicare contractors to recover the portion of the $8.7 million in improper payments made to providers for claim lines that are within the claim-reopening period; (2) for the remaining portion of the $8.7 million, which is outside of the Medicare reopening and recovery periods, instruct the Medicare contractors to notify providers of potential improper payments so that those providers can exercise reasonable diligence to investigate and return any identified similar improper payments, and identify and track any returned improper payments; (3) direct the Medicare contractors to review claim lines for nonemergency ambulance transports to destinations not covered by Medicare after the audit period and recover any improper payments identified; and (4) require the Medicare contractors to implement nation-wide prepayment edits to ensure that payments to providers for nonemergency ambulance transports comply with Federal requirements.

  • The third report is linked to a case study of the closure of the Rosebud Hospital Emergency Department. Rosebud is an Indian Health Service (IHS) hospital that discontinued emergency services. The closure of the Rosebud emergency department (ED) followed a notice of intent by the CMS to terminate Rosebud Hospital from the Medicare program. Representatives of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe raised concerns to OIG about the Rosebud ED closure and linked that closure to several patient deaths that occurred during ambulance transports to other facilities when emergency care was unavailable locally. In response to these concerns, the OIG seeks to examine factors considered and procedures involved in IHS’s decisions to close and later reopen the Rosebud ED. The OIG will also assess IHS’s management, coordination, and communication related to the closure and will identify lessons learned that IHS could apply to similar situations in the future.  The report was expected to be published in 2018, but has not as of this date. 

The AAA continues to monitor the OIG work plan and engage as appropriate with key officials.  Our goal is to provide educational background to address any misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions that may exist. 

MedPAC Examines Beneficiary Use of Emergency Departments

Written by Kathy Lester on . Posted in Medicare, Member Advisories, Member-Only, Regulatory, Reimbursement.

During its October meeting, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), reviewed Medicare’s current policies related to non-urgent and emergency care, as these topics relate to the use of hospital emergency departments (EDs) and urgent care centers (UCCs). The Commission is examining this topic because the use of ED services in recent years has grown faster than that of physician offices.  At the same time, the share of ED visits that are coded as high acuity has increased.

The Commission is exploring Medicare beneficiaries’ use of EDs and UCCs for non-urgent services. In addition, the Commission is analyzing ED coding to determine if the increase in coding high-acuity visits reflects real change in the patients treated in EDs. This slide deck shows the potential savings Medicare could realize if beneficiaries shift certain care to the UCC setting.

During the meeting, the staff sought feedback from Commissioners for developing next steps. This topic will likely continue to be addressed in future meetings.

From the perspective of ambulance payment reform, the observations made by the Commissioners and staff would also seem to support incorporating scope-appropriate ambulance services in the context of community paramedicine or treatment at the scene with referral. While additional work needs to be done by the ambulance community before these services can be incorporated into the Medicare reimbursement program, discussions like the one at MedPAC last week, show the importance of getting the details right so that ambulance services can be part of new payment models likely to be considered.

The American Ambulance Association is leading the effort with the Medicare program to develop appropriate models that account for the cost of providing services through sustainable reimbursement rates, rather than the use of temporary grants. We are also focused on ensuring services align with the scope of practice laws. Led by the Payment Reform and the Medicare Regulatory Committees, our efforts include regular meetings and discussions with leaders at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as well as key Members of Congress. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to learn more about our ongoing efforts.

CMS – MLN Ambulance Transports Booklet

Written by David Werfel on . Posted in Medicaid, Medicare, News, Reimbursement.

CMS has issued an MLN Ambulance Transports Booklet. The booklet (36 pages) can be downloaded here.

Download MLN Ambulance Transports Booklet

One section of the Booklet that you might want to keep handy involves Free-Standing Emergency Departments. Specifically, on page 15, CMS states the following:

Freestanding Emergency Department (ED)
If a freestanding ED is provider based (a department of the hospital), the ambulance transport from the freestanding ED to the hospital is not a separately payable service under Part B if the beneficiary is admitted as an inpatient prior to ambulance transport. For more information about criteria for coverage of ambulance transports separately payable under Part B or as a packaged hospital inpatient service under Part A, refer to Chapter 10, Section 10.3.3, of the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual.

This may be useful, along with the Manual section cited, when you have a free-standing ED that is part of a hospital and they call for transports to the main building for the patient to be admitted, but the hospital lists the time of admission as being prior to the time of your transport. When the hospital admits the patient prior to your transport, the hospital becomes responsible for the ambulance charges. It may be useful to show the hospital and ED the booklet and Manual section to prove to them that the hospital is responsible if the patient is admitted to the hospital prior to your transport.

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