Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

How CMS plans to tinker with the inpatient prospective payment system.
 
Several diagnosis related groups are on deck for updates, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Want to know how the money will be flowing in October 2004? Here's a peek.
     
CMS will:       carve out a new DRG for certain craniotomy procedures that involve the implantation of a chemotherapeutic agent, including acute complex central nervous system diagnoses;       increase payment for burn patients who have respiratory failure and require the long-term use of mechanical ventilation;
      increase payment for heart assist devices (including left ventricular assist devices) by reassigning them to the DRG for heart transplants;       split the DRG for tracheostomy into two new groups, to allow for a higher payment when an additional surgical procedure is performed with a tracheostomy; and       provide higher payments for spinal fusions requiring two incisions by removing single incision procedures from that DRG.