CMS implements revisions to ABN rules

BALTIMORE, Md., Sept. 7, 2012—One potentially significant element of the Medicare ecosystem is the Advance Beneficiary Notice (ABN), a tool for informing beneficiaries about anticipated future services that the program may not cover. ABNs can be significant for innovators because they help sketch the limits of patient financial responsibility for new types of health care services. 

According to ContentHealth, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this week put into effect a previously released set of ABN manual revisions that aims to mold ABN policies to the requirements of the health reform law. Among the topics addressed are the role of ABNs in new preventive services and DMEPOS competitive bidding. CMS also adds several new examples illustrating ABN use across a variety of service types and care settings.

In addition to these line-item changes, there’s a broader point: ABN requirements help flesh out the circumstances in which patients can elect to pay for non-covered services. As such, the CMS revisions etch in miniature some of the same kinds of issues that the larger political debate is framing around beneficiaries’ future Medicare financial responsibilities. Learn more here.