AACVPR REIMBURSEMENT UPDATE
MARCH 7, 2008

Day on the Hill and CMS Multiple Billing Clarification

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AACVPR Day on the Hill

All AACVPR members and Affiliate society members and patients should give a hearty thanks to the 100 pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation professionals from 37 states who traveled to Washington, D.C. last week to promote support for HR 552/S.329, The Pulmonary and Cardiac Rehabilitation Act of 2008. The attendees made over 250 Hill visits to the DC offices of their respective Representatives and Senators. Each Affiliate was charged with identifying and targeting current legislators who are not co-sponsors of this bill (along with some “thank-you for signing on” visits).

This effort was successful in renewing the momentum in support of The Pulmonary and Cardiac Rehabilitation Act of 2008, HR 552/S.329, since we have seen three Senators and 14 members of the House of Representatives add their names as co-sponsors this week.

It is important that you now do your part to support your fellow cardiac and pulmonary practitioners and patients. It is critical that your Representative and Senators hear from you and your patients in the next few weeks. As was discovered last week, many legislators had not been asked to co-sponsor the legislation and that was all they needed to see the logic and benefit of this bill for their constituents. Your patients’ voices will make the difference; rehab practitioners sending emails is not enough to get our message heard in Washington. Please help your patients email or call their congressional members by using the AACVPR Capwiz tool, found on the AACVPR home page in the blue box, which can be used by anybody. Patients can click and send an email and/or click and make a call to request support of HR 552/S.329.

Our goal is to achieve 218 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives and 51 Senate co-sponsors. If this is achieved, it will go far to ensure that our provision is part of the final version of a larger Medicare bill addressing a limited number of issues, such as the 10% physician fee cut due to take effect on July 1, 2008. It has been a long journey, but as the DOTH attendees will attest to, we are very close and each of us needs to take every action possible to bring this to a successful conclusion.

Cardiac Rehabilitation-Multiple Billing per Day

On January 18, 2008 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released Transmittal 1417 which were rules for multiple billing per day of cardiac rehabilitation services. Because the language was not entirely clear, it was important for AACVPR to obtain written clarification from CMS on the intent and appropriate interpretation of this rule. While a practitioner may read the rule one way, if the Medicare contractor reads and interprets it differently, the contractor’s interpretation is the one that stands.

AACVPR successfully obtained written clarification of transmittal 1417 from CMS, as was reported in the AACVPR Reimbursement Update of February 8, 2008. For the full copy of that update, please click "reimbursement" on the left hand navigation menu under the Policy and Reimbursement section of the AACVPR Web site. This updated information on the clarification for billing in cardiac rehab programs is available to share with billing and compliance departments.

As always, AACVPR provides members with the most current, updated information for cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation professionals.