Grassley and Baucus Push For Delaying DRG Changes

If you're like me, you always seem to catch policy changes once their rolling down hill and are already determined to drastically change the way your health care business is run.

So here's my small attempt in alerting you to big changes...

In case you aren't aware, CMS is planning to significantly change the inpatient DRG system in fiscal 2007. In short, the new system will be based on a methodology put together by 3M (aren't they the folks who brought us floppy disks?) and largely decided by projected costs rather than projected charges. While there has been little transparency to how costs are computed, and lots of opinions on who it will help and who it will hurt, it does appear to be a more "fair" system and should help hospitals recoup the rising prices of devices, implants and other major supply costs.

And while Grassley and Baucus pushed for the legislation, given the fact that know one can figure out how the policy change will affect them (i.e. hospitals, suppliers, etc.) they've asked for the implementation to be delayed a year. To read their actual letter to CMS - click here.

More importantly - CMS has noted that their final regulations on the new system will be August 1st. So check out your monthly subscription, or if you have more exciting bedtime reading, just check back her for the published ruling and its intended affects.