Renal Business Today

Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

What to Expect from the ESRD Quality Incentive Program

In this article, the focus will be on the ESRD QIP. There were 88 public comments received on the QIP, and the final QIP rule reflects important changes relative to the proposed rule. The greatest changes in the QIP will be for payment year 2014 ...More
November 4, 2011
Posted in Articles, Business, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
CMS, NRAA to Start Testing HIE System

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Renal Administrators Association (NRAA) have started to test its health information exchange (HIE) that will allow all dialysis providers to batch submit their data to CROWNWeb, according to a Nov. 2 ...More
November 3, 2011
Posted in Blog, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
CMS Raises Dialysis Reimbursement for 2012, Revises QIP

WASHINGTON—The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule Nov. 1 that increases dialysis reimbursement in 2012 and alters the quality incentive program (QIP) by removing the lower hemoglobin target for anemia management in 2013 and expands the ...More
November 2, 2011
Posted in News, Business, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
CMS Proposes to Ease ESRD Federal Fire Code Rules

WASHINGTON—Medicare is proposing to ease federal fire safety regulations after finding the extra structural requirements would impose large costs on already fire-safe dialysis facilities ...More
October 19, 2011 By Keith Chartier
Posted in Articles, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
2011 USRDS Report By the Numbers

The following slides highlight some of the major ESRD-related highlights from the latest USRDS report, which was released in mid-October. ...More
October 18, 2011
Posted in Galleries, Business, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
AKF Releases Online Courses on ESRD Adherence, Payment

ROCKVILLE, Md.—The American Kidney Fund (AKF) has released two new online courses for medical professionals: Perspectives on Adherence and Navigating the End Stage Renal Disease Payment System. ...More
October 13, 2011
Posted in News, Practice Management
Advance Directives Decrease Medicare End-of-Life Expenditures

CHICAGO—Medicare patients with advance directives specifying limits in treatment who lived in regions with higher levels of end-of-life spending were less likely to have an in-hospital death, averaged significantly lower end-of-life Medicare spending and had significantly ...More
October 10, 2011
Posted in News, Practice Management
Coding for CKD Under the ICD-10-CM Code Set

According to the National Kidney Foundation, 26 million American adults have CKD. Dialysis is most commonly prescribed in adult patients for temporary or permanent kidney failure. Diabetes and hypertension are responsible for CKD in up to 2/3 of the cases. We will address ...More
September 14, 2011
Posted in Articles, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
ICD-10 Version 5010 Timeline Widget Available

WASHINGTON—CMS is trying to make it easier for providers to stay on top of the transition to Version 5010 and planning for ICD-10 by creating an interactive timeline widget. ...More
September 12, 2011
Posted in News, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
CMS Releases ePrescribing Final Rule

Editor’s Note: On Aug. 31, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule regarding the Medicare Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program. The following is a news release CMS released reviewing the major points of the eRx rule. ...More
August 31, 2011
Posted in News, Government & Regulation