The final CMS calendar year (CY) 2018 Medicare home health prospective payment system (HH PPS) rule cuts Medicare payments by 0.4% ($80 million) in 2018 compared to 2017 levels, but CMS did not adopt a more sweeping case mix methodology reform proposal that would have reduced 2019 payments by almost $1 billion.
Under the final rule, CMS applied a 1% update percentage as mandated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) for those home health agencies (HHAs) that report required quality data (otherwise the update is decreased by 2 percentage points).
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