Warren Comments on Change in CMS Payment Policy

Partner Adria Warren was quoted in a RevCycle Intelligence article, “CMS to Repay Site-Neutral Payments to Hospitals, Appeal Case,” about the agency’s announcement that it will reprocess hospital claims impacted by a site-neutral payment policy that was overturned by a federal judge in September while it appeals the judge’s ruling.

Warren said hospital organizations may be chalking up some wins through legal challenges to the agency’s payment policies, but that doesn’t mean the end of site-neutral payments. “The Bipartisan Budget Act, in our view, created a line in the sand [by ‘grandfathering’ hospital outpatient facilities that were in existence in November 2015 (when the act was implemented)],” she said. “Congress was very clear and that’s the piece that the court did not speak to in this recent decision. How much CMS can work around that line in the sand is still unclear and it’s going to play out more.”