Appeals Court ruling supports MA organization request for refund of B&O taxes paid on premiums
On April 1, 2019, the Washington Court of Appeals Division 1 ruled unanimously in a published opinion that premiums received by Medicare Advantage (“MA”) organizations from or on behalf of their members are not subject to Washington’s business and occupation
Washington’s Insurance Commissioner Rolls Back Federal Attempt to Expand Access to Short-Term Health Plans
On October 17, 2018, the Office of the Insurance Commissioner (“OIC”) adopted a final rule that defines minimum standards for short-term limited-duration health insurance plans (“short-term plans”) in Washington State and rejects federal efforts to expand their availability. Short-term plans are
Touted as a major step in its efforts toward Medicare modernization, CMS issued a proposed Physician Fee Schedule rule on July 12, 2018 that would, in part, gut the current five-tier structure for Evaluation and Management (“E/M”) codes and collapse levels 2 through 5 down to one payment rate. The proposed payment overhaul, coupled with changes in the documentation required to support certain claims for reimbursement, is geared toward simplifying the Medicare billing rules and reducing the administrative burden for physicians so that they can focus on patient care.
E/M services comprise about 40% of the charges approved by Medicare under the physician fee schedule, with office visits representing half of that amount. Currently, documentation for these visits must comply with rigorous Documentation Guidelines that require a record of all clinically relevant information, as well as justification for medical necessity and appropriateness. There are five visit levels in each new patient and established patient E/M code family, and documentation must justify the code level being billed. Each visit level is tied to a different reimbursement rate reflecting different levels of service complexity and time spent.
The proposed rule would retain the existing CPT coding structure, but provide for a single, blended reimbursement rate for both new and established patients for outpatient E/M level 2 through 5 office visits. Add-on codes will be available to reflect additional resources involved in providing complex primary care and non-procedural services. The documentation standards for more complex office visits would be reduced to the amount required for a level 2 visit. While many providers would continue to document justification for higher levels of care, in part because of non-Medicare payers, CMS asserts that the change would provide immediate relief from the need to “audit against the visit levels.” The single work RVU for the collapsed office visit category would fall somewhere between the current level 2 and level 5 amounts. The following example is provided in the proposed rule:
Preliminary Comparison of Payment Rates for Office Visits, New Patients
| HCPCS Code | CY 2018 Non-facility Payment Rate |
CY 2018 Non-facility Payment Rate under the proposed methodology |
| 99201 | $45 | $44 |
| 99202 | $76 | $135 |
| 99203 | $110 | |
| 99204 | $167 | |
| 99205 | $211 |
Continue Reading Proposed Medicare E/M Payment Overhaul Draws Mixed Reviews