Scaling Back Changes to Medicare Payments
From NYT > Health:
Under intense pressure from health care lobbyists and lawmakers, the Bush administration says it will scale back and delay proposed changes in Medicare payments to hospitals that would have created clear winners and losers.
The proposals would have cut payments by 20 percent to 30 percent for many complex treatments and new technologies.
On Tuesday night, the Bush administration issued a final rule that reaffirmed the overall goal of more accurate payments while backing away from many of the proposed changes, including a sweeping revision in the classification of patients intended to account for the severity of their illnesses.
Lobbyists wrote dozens of letters to the Medicare agency, stoked concern on Capitol Hill, ran advertisements and met with White House officials including Rob Portman, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Federal officials said the new payments would be more accurate because they would be based on estimated hospital costs, rather than inflated charges.
Federal officials had proposed sweeping changes in the classification system, to account for the severity of each patient's illness.
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