Registration for the CMS Hospital Value-Based Purchasing National Provider Call is now open!
The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) is currently conducting a “dry run” of the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (Hospital VBP) Program in order to simulate the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 program one year in advance. Hospital VBP is the next step in promoting higher quality care for Medicare beneficiaries and will transform Medicare into an active purchaser of quality health care for its beneficiaries. This dry run will provide hospitals with a better understanding of the Hospital VBP Program, how performance will be scored, and will offer hospitals the chance to review their data and ask questions to clarify the Program. As part of the Dry Run, CMS will create simulated, hospital-specific Performance Reports for each hospital to review. The simulated reports will employ hospital data from prior years as the basis for the baseline and performance periods. The Simulated Hospital VBP Program reports will feature: · The hospital’s estimated incentive payment percentage, based on the dry run’s baseline and performance periods; · The hospital’s Total Performance Score and a comparison to national and state Total Performance Scores; · The hospital’s scores for the Clinical Process of Care domain and the Patient Experience of Care domain; · The hospital’s individual Clinical Process measure performance and scores; · The hospital’s individual Patient Experience dimension performance and scores; · The hospital’s individual Patient Experience domain consistency score; and · Detailed explanations of every section of the simulated report. To prepare providers for interpreting the Dry Run simulated report, CMS will be hosting a National Provider Call on Tuesday, December 6, 2011. The National Provider Call will discuss a sample report that will demonstrate what hospitals can expect when their specific reports are made available through their QualityNet accounts on or after December 16, 2011. Hospitals that do not meet the eligibility requirements during this dry run simulation will not receive a hospital-specific Performance Report for review; however those hospitals are welcome to join the National Provider Call to learn more about this program. When: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 Time: 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. EST Target Audience: Hospitals, Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs), physicians, nurses, medical coders, physician office staff, provider billing staff, health records staff, vendors and all Medicare-fee-for-service (FFS) providers. Agenda: * Opening Remarks; * Program Announcements; * Overview of the FY 2013 Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program; * Presentation and walkthrough of a sample hospital specific report; * Question & Answer Session Registration information: Please visit http://www.eventsvc.com/blhtechnologies to register for this informative session. Registration will close at 12:00 p.m. EST on December 6, 2011, or when available space has been filled. No exceptions will be made. Please register early. Please note that questions prior to the call will be taken during registration. Every effort will be made to address questions during or after this call. Presentation information: A slideshow presentation will be made available in advance of the call at http://www.cms.gov/Hospital-Value-Based-Purchasing/ . ------------------------------------------------- Each Office Visit is an Opportunity. Medicare patients give many reasons for not getting their annual flu vaccination, but the fact is that flu seasons are unpredictable and can be severe. Each year, it is estimated that 90 percent of seasonal flu-related deaths and more than 60 percent of seasonal flu-related hospitalizations occur in people 65 years and older. Please talk with your Medicare patients about the importance of getting their annual flu vaccination. And remember, vaccination is important for healthcare workers too, who may spread the flu to high risk patients. Don’t forget to immunize yourself and your staff. Protect your patients. Protect your family. Protect yourself. Get the Flu Vaccine—Not the Flu. Remember – The flu vaccine plus its administration are covered Part B benefits. CMS has posted the 2011-2012 seasonal flu vaccine payment limits at http://www.CMS.gov/McrPartBDrugAvgSalesPrice/10_VaccinesPricing.asp. Note that the flu vaccine is NOT a Part D-covered drug. For more information on coverage and billing of the flu vaccine and its administration, as well as related educational provider resources, visit http://www.CMS.gov/MLNProducts/35_PreventiveServices.asp and http://www.cms.gov/immunizations. ------------------------------------------------------ Note: If you have problems accessing any hyperlink in this message, please copy and paste the URL into your Internet browser. If you know someone who would like to subscribe to a Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) provider listserv, go to (http://www.cms.gov/prospmedicarefeesvcpmtgen/downloads/Provider_Listservs.pdf). 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. 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