Oncology Practice Insider

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rules. The administration also released an accompanying Executive Order focusing on telehealth and rural healthcare. Learn more.

On August 3, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) on Improving Rural Health and Telehealth Access aimed at increasing access to healthcare services in rural areas.

On July 23, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar released a renewal of determination to extend the current COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) by up to another 90 days. The renewal is effective July 25.

On July 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced payment is available to physicians and health care providers to counsel patients at the time of COVID testing about the importance of self-isolation after they are tested and prior to the onset of symptoms. CMS will use existing evaluation and management (E/M) payment codes to reimburse providers who are eligible to bill CMS for counseling services no matter where a test is administered, including doctor’s offices, urgent care clinics, hospitals and community drive-thru or pharmacy testing sites.

ASCO submitted comments to CMS in response to the FY 2021 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule. The proposal would establish a new Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Group (MS-DRG) for procedures involving chimeric antigen receptor T-cell immunotherapies (CAR-T).

On September 22-24, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be hosting the “2020 Virtual A/B, Home Health, and Hospice Medicare Summit.” The summit will feature 28 live Medicare A/B, Home Health, and Hospice courses such as “Medicare Secondary Payer Billing Challenges” and “Untangling the Mystery of Hospice Transfers.”  For more details about the event and to register, visit the

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published the Open Payments Program Year 2019 data, along with newly submitted and updated payment records from previous program years. CMS published $10.03 billion in payments and ownership and investment interests to physicians and teaching hospitals, and this amount comprises 10.98 million total records attributable to 614,910 physicians and 1,196 teaching hospitals. Payments are reported in three major reporting categories. The amounts reported in the three categories for the 2019 Program Year are:

On July 7, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2018 Quality Payment Program (QPP) Experience Report to provide insights into participation during the 2018 performance year.