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Medicare releases final bundling rule

On July 26, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the final rule to implement a new bundled prospective payment system for Medicare outpatient dialysis services, as Congress directed in the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008.

Medicare bundling webinar
Our president and CEO Joyce Jackson is one of the national experts who will speak in a free webinar at noon Aug. 25, 2010. The session, covering implications of the new Medicare dialysis payment system, is sponsored by Nephrology News & Issues magazine. Click here to learn more >

More information:

Medicare's news release
announcing the final rule

Full text of the rule in the
Federal Register (900 pages)

Reaction from NKC patient and
Foundation board member Bill Peckham

Perspective from Mark E.
Neumann, NephrOnline

Previous NKC coverage of
the bundling issue
Highlights of the rule include:
  • Increase to the final base rate payment amount
  • Delay of inclusion of oral-only dialysis-related drugs until 2014
  • Reduction in number of adjusters for complicating conditions
  • Inclusion of home dialysis training add-on payment
  • Clarification of laboratory tests for which dialysis providers are responsible, now defined as a list of specific, commonly ordered labs related to dialysis treatment

The rule applies to dialysis services beginning Jan. 1, 2011.

Medicare listened and adopted Northwest Kidney Centers’ recommendations

Northwest Kidney Centers and many of its patients, doctors, staff and supporters submitted comments last fall. "All of our major recommendations were accepted. Financially, the changes made were all in the right direction from our perspective,” said Joyce F. Jackson, president and CEO. “We should feel satisfied that we made a difference.

“Many changes will need to be made in our systems, charting, and procedures to support a positive outcome under bundling. We intend to achieve our strategy to improve quality while aligning payments and costs,” Jackson said.