On Jan. 1, 2017, physicians and other health care providers will embark on the era of MACRA, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which will dramatically change how providers are paid by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

This year, the AASM is again offering a discounted rate for submission of data through the PQRSwizard registry, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approved reporting mechanism for the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS).

An article by economists and actuaries in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary estimates that health spending growth in the U.S. for 2015 to 2025 is projected to average 5.8 percent and to represent 20.1 percent of the total economy by 2025.

On July 7, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule detailing proposals for payment and policies for services furnished under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule effective Jan. 1, 2017. The rule recommends 2017 payment rates for evaluation and management services and sleep services that are consistent with rates in 2016.

This week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a proposal to align and modernize how Medicare payments are tied to the cost and quality of patient care.

The AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events, Version 2.3 will be released online on Friday, April 1, 2016. All subscribers will have immediate digital access to Version 2.3, which includes several important changes.

At the February 2016 meeting of the American Medical Association’s Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Panel, two telemedicine-related proposals were approved for the CPT codebook.

On March 3 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it had met its goal ahead of schedule to tie 30 percent of Medicare payments to alternative payment models, which seek to link payment to quality, rather than quantity of services. 

On Feb. 26, 2016 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it has extended the deadline for provider application for hardship exemption from the EHR Meaningful Use program. The new exemption deadline is set for July 1, 2016.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has extended the attestation deadline for Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs to Friday, March 11, 2016.