The Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that public disclosure of information about adverse events was limited, according to its review of 17 state adverse event report systems, eight Patient Safety Organizations overseen by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

On July 1, the CMS released the proposed changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS). CMS updates the MPFS annually to set payment rates for physician and non-physician practitioner services. The press release is found on the Medical Release Database section within CMS: http://tinyurl.com/kqsdym.

Acute care hospitals will receive a net 0.2 percent increase in payments for inpatient hospitals services in fiscal year (FY) 2010 under the proposed rule for the inpatient hospital prospective payment system (IPPS). Hospitals face a net decrease in payments in FY 2011 and 2012 under the proposed rule.

On April 17, 2009, HHS issued guidance specifying the technologies and methodologies that render protected health information unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals, as required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The guidance was developed through a joint effort by OCR, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and CMS.

The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA), enacted on July 15, 2008, made limited changes to the competitive bidding program for Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS), including a requirement that the Secretary conduct a second competition to select suppliers for Round 1 in 2009. 

On February 17, 2009, the American Hospital Association, Association of American Medical Colleges and Federation of American Hospitals submitted a comment letter to CMS recommending two new exceptions to the physician self-referral law - exceptions for incentive payment and shared-savings programs.  At the same time, the hospital groups also submitted a letter to the OIG asking for formal withdrawal of the 1999 Special Bulletin regarding gainsharing arrangements.  The letters address CMS final rule with comment

CMS announced on Feb. 4, 2009, that all parties involved in the protest of the award of the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) contracts settled their protests. The settlement means that the stop work order has been lifted and CMS will now continue with the implementation of the RAC program.

CMS and Congress will be focusing more on regulatory compliance matters in 2009 than they have in years, according to Brian Flood, managing director at KPMG. "You have a lot of activity going on in the next six months," he said during a recent American Bar Association teleconference.

The 111th Congress, which will meet in 2009 and 2010, will not consider anylegislation that would enact reductions in Medicare financing from the Treasury'sgeneral revenues.

On December 12, 2008, CMS published notice in the Federal Register that it had submitted a revised Disclosure of Financial Relationships Report ("DFRR") audit form to the Office of Management and Budget for review ("OMB").  The DFRR form will be used by CMS to identify arrangements that potentially may not be in compliance with the physician self-referral statute/regulations and to identify examples and areas of noncompliance that may assist CMS in f