Special Open Door Forum: Manual Medical Review of Therapy Claims Tuesday August 7; 2-3:30pm ET Conference Call Only
The purpose of this Special Open Door Forum (ODF) is to provide an opportunity for providers to ask questions about the mandated manual medical review of therapy services from October 1-December 31, 2012 that was enacted by the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. During this Special Open Door Forum, CMS will discuss the implementation of a process to request exceptions from manual medical review, and what the process entails. CMS requests provider's participation who orders or provides therapy services nationally. See below for more background and who will be impacted. The statutory Medicare Part B outpatient therapy cap for Occupational Therapy (OT) is $1,880 for 2012, and the combined cap for Physical Therapy (PT) and Speech-Language Pathology Services (SLP) is also $1,880 for 2012. This is an annual per beneficiary therapy cap amount determined for each calendar year. Medicare allowable charges, which includes both Medicare payments to providers and beneficiary coinsurance, are counted toward the therapy cap. In outpatient settings, Medicare will pay for 80 percent of allowable charges and the beneficiary is responsible for the remaining 20 percent of the amount. The therapy cap applies to all Part B outpatient therapy settings and providers including: * private practices, * skilled nursing facilities, * home health agencies, * outpatient rehabilitation facilities, and * comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facilities. Beginning this year, the therapy cap will also apply to therapy services furnished in hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) until December 31, 2012. Before 2012, therapy provided in hospital outpatient departments did not count towards the therapy cap. Participants may submit questions prior to the Special ODF to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. We look forward to your participation. Special Open Door Participation Instructions: § Dial: (800) 603-1774 & Conference ID: 16032541 § Note: TTY Communications Relay Services are available for the Hearing Impaired. For TTY services dial 7-1-1 or 800-855-2880. A Relay Communications Assistant will help. A transcript and audio recording of this Special ODF will be posted to the Special Open Door Forum<http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/OpenDoorForums/ODFSpecialODF.html> website and will be accessible for downloading. For automatic emails of Open Door Forum schedule updates (E-Mailing list subscriptions) and to view Frequently Asked Questions please visit the Open Door Forum<http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/OpenDoorForums/index.html?redirect=/opendoorforums/> website. ________________________________ If you know someone who would like to subscribe to a Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) provider listserv, go to http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/downloads//MailingLists_FactSheet.pdf<http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/downloads/MailingLists_FactSheet.pdf> and select the appropriate listserv to subscribe. If you would like to unsubscribe from a specific provider listserv, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa.exe?INDEX) to unsubscribe or to leave the appropriate listserv. Please DO NOT respond to this email. This email is a service of CMS and routed through an electronic mail server to communicate Medicare policy and operational changes and/or updates. Responses to this email are not routed to CMS personnel. Inquiries may be sent by going to (http://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Agency-Information/ContactCMS/index.html). Thank you.
