On July 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that would increase payments to hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) by 1.5 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively, in calendar year (CY) 2012. Under the proposed rule (to be issued in the July 18 Federal Register), Medicare payments to hospital outpatient departments would be $41.9 billion next year and payments to ASCs would be about $3.61 billion, per CMS. 

Also, CMS is proposing to add nine quality measures to the current list of 23 measures to be reported by hospital outpatient departments in CYs 2013 and 2014. For the first time, CMS is proposing a quality reporting program for ASCs, with eight quality measures to be reported by ASCs beginning in CY 2012 for CY 2014 payment determination. 

In addition, as part of the rule, CMS added several proposals concerning the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) program, which the agency finalized in April. The HVBP program, mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), will, beginning in FY 2014, tie Medicare payments under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) to hospitals’ performance scores on a set of quality measures.