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Looser CMS regulations announced
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Regulatory changes to the Medicare program will save health care providers across the country considerable time and money. The current changes are expected to save providers about $660 million annually. When another CMS rule finalized in 2012 is taken into account, the cumulative savings are expected to exceed $8 billion over the next 5 years.
“This rule helps health care providers to operate more efficiently by getting rid of regulations that are out of date or no longer needed. Many of the rule’s provisions streamline health and safety standards health care providers must meet in order to participate in Medicare and Medicaid,” CMS stated in the release.
Some key changes outlined in the CMS press release are related to the supervisory requirements for many procedures. Registered dieticians and qualified nutritionists will now be able to order diets for patients directly, without the need for an onsite prescribing physician.
Supervising physicians or pharmacists will no longer be required to provide constant supervision of nuclear medicine technicians. The changes allow trained technicians will be able to prepare radiopharmaceuticals required for the use of nuclear medicine without a supervising physician.
“Unnecessary requirements” for ambulatory surgical centers which provide radiological services are eliminated with the changes, allowing for a wider range of supervision options by physicians.
Other provisions include elimination of data submission redundancies and a survey process described as “unnecessary” for transplant centers.
The press release also claimed savings of $1.1 billion realized across the health care field in the first year after the implementation of prior changes in May 2012.