Re:  Supplemental Payments of the 10.6% Fee Reduction

On July 15^th, 2008 Congress passed the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008.  This legislation cancelled the scheduled 10.6% fee reduction mandated by the SGR and replaced the reduction with a .5% increase, the same amount paid by Medicare from January 1^st, 2008 through June 30^th, 2008.  The Medicare carriers expect to begin making the adjusted .5% payment no sooner than July 22^nd and no later than July 29^th.  Claims submitted with a service date of July 1^st or after are currently being paid at the 10.6% reduced fee schedule.  As soon as possible, the carriers will begin reprocessing these claims automatically and will remit the additional payments to the provider in the same fashion the reduced payment claims were paid.  The ?remittance advice? will provide detailed payment information.  Please note that payments will likely come in ?lump sum payments? of one or several checks.  Again, payment details will accompany these lump sum payments. 

It appears that CMS has established a process that will allow the carriers to adjudicate the supplemental payments efficiently.  Should this not be the case HBMA has established a communication process with CMS to report system failures and resolve unforeseen issues.  Denial and rejection issues will need to be handled directly with the appropriate carrier.  Please report any system failures you experience to HBMA as soon as possible by sending an e-mail to Brad Lund at brad@hbma.org.