Premier Comments on CY 2023 Medicare Outpatient Proposed Rule

Premier submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the calendar year (CY) 2023 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) proposed rule. As discussed in more detail in the letter, Premier:

• Supports CMS taking swift action to reverse the harmful cuts to 340B program discounted drugs across all affected payment years. Premier strongly urges CMS to utilize notice-and-comment rulemaking to implement any remedies to the 2018-2022 payment cuts if it chooses to implement a remedy on its own, absent a court ruling. Premier lays out principles for CMS to consider, including reversing 340B cuts through a lump sum payment and holding all hospitals harmless from any payment claw backs.
• Supports CMS’ proposal to adopt a payment adjustment to inpatient and outpatient Medicare payments for domestically produced N95s. Premier continues to urge CMS to expand this adjustment to other critical medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. CMS should also work with Congress to revise statute to allow for this policy to be implemented in a non-budget neutral manner under the OPPS.
• Continues to have significant concerns that the proposed hospital payment update is insufficient and does not adequately account for rising labor costs. Premier recommends that CMS reevaluate the data sources it uses to calculate labor costs and consider adopting new or supplemental data sources that more accurately reflect the cost of labor, such as more real time data from the hospital community.
• Supports CMS’ ongoing health equity priorities and the principles it lays out for measuring disparities in quality. Premier provides additional feedback on the standardization and collection of social determinants of health data.
• Provides additional feedback on the design of the new Rural Emergency Hospital provider designation, including payment policies, quality measurement, and enrollment process.