Proposed 2020 Fee Schedule Sees Bump in Payment, Streamlining of Documentation
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is also proposing some changes to payment for services provided to patients with opioid use disorders.
Psychiatrists will see on average a slight uptick in reimbursement under the Medicare program in 2020, according to the proposed 2020 fee schedule issued last month by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Additional increases are expected for the 2021 fee schedule.
CMS is also proposing changes that will simplify documentation for evaluation and management (E/M) services and establish “bundled payments” for patients being treated for an opioid use disorder (OUD). (Bundled payments provide a single payment for all services provided over a defined episode of care.)
Those are the highlights of a proposed 2020 fee schedule that APA staff said is mostly good news for psychiatrists. In addition to the fee schedule, which governs coding and reimbursement, the CMS rule also includes proposed updates and changes to the Quality Payment Program. The latter includes proposed rules for the two quality programs in which physicians can participate: the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Models (APMs).
Author: Mark Moran
Published online: August 31, 2019