The Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC) will take up discussions of reimbursements to physician-owned ambulatory surgical centers (ASC) at its next meeting, March 18-19, 2004.
Part of the new Medicare reform bills signed in December imposed an 18-month moratorium on Medicare payments to physician-owners working in their own surgery centers. This should give some thought to physicians interested in opening an ASC.
The law requires the General Accounting Office to study the impact of specialty hospitals on the healthcare system and report back to Congress during the moratorium period.
Some 3,000 ASCs have some form of physician ownership. As the new law did not affect payments to surgical hospitals already in existence before 11/18/03, thus it is doubtful that the law would affect ASCs already in existence.
MedPAC members supplanted the list of 400 procedures that are eligible for Medicare reimbursement with a list of about 4,000 Medicare-reimbursable procedures that can be performed on an outpatient basis within hospitals, with exclusions for those procedures that would be deemed medically inappropriate for the ASC setting.
MedPAC recommendations are forwarded to Congress, which may or may not act on them.