09 Jun The Task Force Provides Input to CMS on FY 2024 IPPS Proposed Rule
The Health Care Transformation Task Force submitted comments on the FY 2024 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Proposed Rule (CMS-1785-P). The Task Force letter focused on the following:
- HVBP HEALTH EQUITY ADJUSTMENT: HCTTF supports the creation of a Health Equity Adjustment (HEA) that offers hospitals an opportunity to earn additional financial incentives within the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) Program. The Task Force offers CMS suggestions regarding the methodology and data for calculating the HEA, as well as other approaches to address health care disparities and advance health equity.
- UPDATES TO HCAHPS DATA COLLECTION: The Task Force supports CMS’ proposal to create three additional models for fielding the HCAHPS survey, including via web-mail, web-phone, and web-mail-phone. The Task Force also supports allowing patient proxies to respond to HCAHPS, and the Spanish translation requirement proposal.
- CHANGES TO SEVERITY LEVEL DESIGNATION FOR HOMELESSNESS Z-CODES: In an effort to address challenges faced by safety net hospitals in caring for unhoused patients, CMS proposes to change the severity level designation for three diagnosis codes that indicate homelessness from non-complication/comorbidity to complication/comorbidity. The Task Force supports this change and offers CMS suggestions for additional ways to address the challenges that often occur with accurately capturing z-code data.
- REMOVAL OF MATERNITY MEASURE FROM IQR: CMS proposes to remove “Elective Delivery Prior to 39 Weeks” from the Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program. The Task Force supports this proposal, noting that this measure is topped-out and there is extremely small opportunity for improvement. HCTTF does implore CMS to replace it with another maternity measure, noting that there are numerous measures in the CQMC OB/GYN Core Set that address the current maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity crisis.