Medicare Program Proposed Rule: Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems and Quality Reporting Programs; Short Inpatient Hospital Stays; Transition for Certain Medicare-Dependent, Small Rural Hospitals Under the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System

Among the provisions in this proposed rule issued on July 1, 2015, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed relaxing the Medicare “Two-Midnight” rule regarding when inpatient admissions are appropriate for payment under Medicare Part A, which covers inpatient hospital charges. Additional provisions in the proposed rule, include changes to the amounts and factors used to determine the payment rates for Medicare services paid under the outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) and those paid under the ambulatory surgical center (ASC) payment system. In addition, CMS proposed updating and refining the requirements for the Hospital Outpatient Quality . . .