Rolnictwo i rynki · 11/08/2004

Medicare Program; Changes to the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems and Fiscal Year 2005 Rates

We are revising the Medicare hospital inpatient prospective payment systems (IPPS) for operating and capital-related costs to implement changes arising from our continuing experience with these systems; and to implement a number of changes made by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 that was enacted on December 8, 2003. In addition, in the Addendum to this final rule, we describe the changes to the amounts and factors used to determine the rates for Medicare hospital inpatient services for operating costs and capital-related costs. These changes are applicable to discharges occurring on or after October 1, 2004. We also are setting forth rate-of-increase limits as well as policy changes for hospitals and hospital units excluded from the IPPS that are paid in full or in part on a reasonable cost basis subject to these limits. Among the policy changes that we are making are: Changes to the classification of cases to the diagnosis-related groups (DRGs); changes to the long-term care (LTC)-DRGs and relative weights; changes in the wage data, labor-related share of the wage index, and the geographic area designations used to compute the wage index;