CMS Reforms to "Obsolete" and "Burdensome" Medicare Regulations in Effect

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) has enacted amendments to certain Medicare regulations that it deemed "unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome" on health care providers. These new amendments went into effect on July 11, 2014.

According to a Mondaq article, the "amended regulations affect a broad range of providers and suppliers, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, rural health and primary care facilities, clinical laboratories, transplant centers and organ procurement organizations, ambulatory surgical centers (ASC), and intermediate care facilities for individuals who are intellectually disabled."

The Mondaq article notes that, while the CMS introduction focuses on the revisions intended to reform the obsolete and burdensome regulations, a "significant number of the amendments merely standardize language or confirm internal citations or references."

Of course, any effective measures CMS takes to reduce the regulatory and cost burden on health care providers are welcome. Even with these most recent changes, however, the burden of local, state, and federal regulatory compliance continues to divert resources away from patient care.[1]

CMS indicated that the final rule "increases the ability of health care professionals to devote resources to improving patient care, by eliminating or reducing requirements that impede quality patient care or that divert resources away from providing high quality patient care." [2]

Read the full article:

United States: Amendments To Reform ‘Burdensome’ Medicare Regulations Now Effective
Sarah G. Benator, Lowell C. Brown, Linda A. Baumann and Erin Muellenberg | Mondaq
August 1, 2014

1. United States: Amendments To Reform ‘Burdensome’ Medicare Regulations Now Effective
2. Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Regulatory Provisions To Promote Program Efficiency, Transparency, and Burden Reduction; Part II; Final Rule, 42 CFR Parts 413, 416, 440 et al.