Congress passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 on April 14, 2015. President Obama also signed the bill into law during that same week. The new law eliminates the 21% Medicare cut that was scheduled to take place on April 1, 2015. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working to implement other provisions that are included with this Act. Those additional provisions include allowing for exceptions to the therapy cap, add-on payments for ambulance services, payments for low-volume hospitals, and payments for Medicare-dependent hospitals that expired on April 1, 2015.
CMS previously instituted a 10-business day processing hold for all impacted claims with dates of service April 1, 2015 and later. This was to help minimize financial effects on providers. No action is necessary from providers who have already submitted claims for the impacted dates of service.