Medicare Payment Roundup: Pass-Through Reforms, Packaging And More

Key device updates in CMS's latest payment rules include reforms to the hospital outpatient pass-through payment process for new technology, the agency's continued march forward on "comprehensive" outpatient procedure payments, scaled-back physician cuts for radiation oncology and reimbursement for transoral GERD procedures.

Health care providers and product manufacturers are poring over CMS' recently released 2016 payment system rules. Here are a few key takeaways for device companies from the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system and physician fee schedule final rules.

CMS decisions on awarding bonus hospital outpatient "pass-through" payments to new technology will be subject to a stricter "newness" standard...

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