Health Law Scan

The Medicare program is broken down into four parts. Part A covers the cost of healthcare items and services provided during inpatient hospital stays as well as skilled nursing facility, hospice, and some home health care. Part B covers certain physician services, outpatient care, medical supplies, and preventive services. Together, Parts A and B are commonly referred to as traditional Medicare or fee-for-service (FFS) because claims for each item or service are submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for reimbursement through its Medicare Administrative Contractors.

Since our publication on disenrollments caused by the “unwinding” of Medicaid’s continuous enrollment condition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued an interim final rule on December 6, 2023 implementing the requirement under the Consolidated Appropriations Act for CMS to withhold federal Medicaid funding from states that do not report monthly unwinding data.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed on April 23, 2023 two rules that would affect Medicaid managed care: Ensuring Access to Medicaid Services (CMS 2442-P) and Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Managed Care Access, Finance, and Quality (CMS-2439-P). The proposed rules recognize the growth of managed care, which currently constitutes more than 70% of the Medicaid population.

Last month, we had an engaging Fast Break session covering the growing importance of risk adjustment in various health insurance programs and novel government theories of liability associated with risk adjustment reporting. Morgan Lewis associates Tesch Leigh West and Michelle M. Arra described the fundamental processes regarding risk adjustment and highlighted recent audit and enforcement trends in this area.