Eli's Hospice Insider

Published on Wed Jul 17, 2019 PDF

You may feel like you’re drowning in paperwork and red tape, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is declaring victory in implementing burden reduction under its Patients over Paperwork campaign.

“In step with the Trump Administration’s Cut the Red Tape initiative to reduce overly burdensome regulations across the federal government, Patients over Paperwork has made great inroads in clearing away needlessly complex, outdated, or duplicative requirements that drain clinicians’ time but contribute little to quality of care or patient health,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma says in a release. “Since launching Patients over Paperwork in late 2017, CMS has worked closely with the healthcare community to relieve regulatory burden and maintain flexibility and efficiency in Medicare and Medicaid.”

But there’s still hope. CMS is soliciting new burden reduction ideas. “CMS is especially seeking innovative ideas … on potential solutions to relieve burden and ways to improve” the following areas: reporting and documentation; coding and documentation; prior authorization; rural providers, clinicians, and beneficiaries; dually enrolled beneficiaries; beneficiary enrollment and eligibility determination; and CMS processes for issuing regulations and policies.

More information is in the Request for Information notice in the June 11 Federal Register at www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-06-11/pdf/2019-12215.pdf.