What’s happening: CHA submitted comments in response to the federal fiscal year 2026 inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) proposed rule, highlighting the inadequate proposed net payment update.
In the letter, CHA asks CMS to:
- Provide an adequate market basket update
- Revise uncompensated care disproportionate share hospital assumptions
- Finalize the proposal to permanently discontinue the low-wage index bottom quartile policy in 2026 and future years
- Not apply budget neutrality to transitional wage index adjustment
- Revise methodology used to calculate the labor-related share
- Make risk-bearing payment models voluntary
- Permit subtraction of revenues after indirect cost allocation for nursing and allied health education programs
- Revise the long-term care hospital fixed-loss outlier threshold
- Finalize proposals to reduce quality reporting burden and remove additional quality measures
- Reduce thresholds for hybrid quality measures and allow for additional years of voluntary reporting
- Not modify measures in pay-for-performance programs to include Medicare Advantage beneficiaries
- Clarify that cyberattacks are within the definition of extraordinary circumstance under the quality programs’ extraordinary circumstance exception policies
- Advance opportunities to reduce regulatory burden in the Medicare Program
CHA thanks members for their input, which helped inform these comments.
