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CHA has provided member hospitals and health systems with revised reports on Medicare hospital wage index and occupational mix data analysis. The analyses are intended to provide a comparative review of the wage and occupational mix data that will be used to develop the federal fiscal year (FFY) 2020 Medicare hospital wage index.
The data analyzed are “final” and are the last of three wage data public use files (PUFs) that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will issue to develop the FFY 2020 hospital wage index. Because the data are subject to revision, the analysis is not intended to be used to calculate hospital wage indexes, but rather to allow hospitals an opportunity to review the most recent wage and occupational mix data as published by CMS.
It is extremely important that hospitals review this data. Under CMS’ hospital wage index development timetable, hospitals have until May 30 to verify their data and submit correction requests with supporting documentation to both CMS and their Medicare administrative contractor (MAC) to:
- Correct errors due to CMS or MAC mishandling of the “final” wage data posted in the April 30 PUF
- Dispute data corrections made by CMS after March 22 that did not arise from a hospital’s request for revisions
Changes to the data will be limited to situations involving errors by CMS or the MAC that the hospital could not have known about before review of the “final” April PUFs. Data that were incorrect in the preliminary or revised wage index data PUFs, but for which no correction requests were received by the Feb. 15 deadline, will not be changed.
More information is available in the attached analysis descriptions.
