HomeCare Editors’ Top 5: ICD-10, Medicare Payment Cuts and More

House Leaders Looking for Deal to Halt Medicare Payment Cuts

Aides to top House Republicans and Democrats are trying to negotiate a bipartisan compromise to permanently revamp a law that annually threatens cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, including a 21 percent reduction set to take effect April 1. As part of the talks, bargainers are considering budget cuts that could offset part, but not all, of the measure’s costs, according to lobbyists following the negotiations. The estimated 10-year price of repealing the annual Medicare cuts is roughly $175 billion. (Alan Framm/Associated Press)

ICD-10 Proponents Ready to Fight Any Delays Linked to ‘Doc Fix’

Proponents of implementing the ICD-10 diagnostic and procedural coding system are vowing not to be ambushed during this year’s “doc fix” legislation debate in Washington. A last-minute delay in ICD-10 implementation for 2014 surprisingly was tucked into last year’s federal “doc fix” bill. Talks about how to stave off a 21.2 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors have heated up on Capitol Hill in recent days. Legislators have until March 31 to pass legislation to prevent the sustainable growth-rate formula from being implemented. Most healthcare policy watchers expect them to once again pass a temporary fix in the realm of three to nine months, which would be the 18th consecutive patch. (Paul Demko/Modern Healthcare)

Medical Device ID Effort Hits Snag

The ideal way to protect the public from hazardous medical devices, the Food and Drug Administration says, is a brand-specific identification number on devices like implanted heart defibrillators and artificial hips. If one goes haywire, the thinking goes, doctors can quickly tap large insurance databases to find out whether the malfunction was rare—or part of a broader public-health threat. Further implants would be stopped before the faulty device is widely used. (Thomas Burton/ The Wall Street Journal)

Budget Office Again Reduces Its Estimate on Cost of the Affordable Care Act

The Congressional Budget Office on Monday again lowered its estimate of the cost of the Affordable Care Act, citing slow growth of health insurance premiums as a major factor. Just since January, the budget office said, it has reduced its estimate of the 10-year cost of federal insurance subsidies by 20 percent, and its estimate of new Medicaid costs attributable to the law has come down by 8 percent. (Robert Pear/The New York Times)

Some Supreme Court Justices Cite 2012 Argument Against Health Care Law as Defense for It Now

In 2012, the Supreme Court declared that Congress had put “a gun to the head” of states by pressuring them to expand Medicaid, and it said that such “economic dragooning” of the states violated federalism principles embedded in the Constitution. Now, in a separate case, comments by several justices indicate that they could uphold a pillar of the Affordable Care Act — insurance subsidies for millions of lower-income people — by invoking those same principles. (Robert Pear/The New York Times)