In this episode, Christina Brown, BESLER’s Vice President of Reimbursement Services, provides us with a glimpse into BESLER’s next free Webinar, Reimbursement Updates 2025, hosted live on Wednesday, November 19, at 1 PM ET.
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Learn how to listen to The Hospital Finance Podcast® on your mobile device.Highlights of this episode include:
- What is going to be discussing in the webinar.
- IPPS and OPPS rules.
- Transmittal updates.
- Key takeaways.
Kelly Wisness: Hi, this is Kelly Wisness. Welcome back to the award-winning Hospital Finance Podcast. We’re pleased to welcome back Christina Brown, BESLER’s Vice President of Reimbursement Services. In this episode, Christina will provide us with a glimpse into BESLER’s next free Webinar, Reimbursement Updates 2025, that we’re hosting live on Wednesday, November 19, at 1 PM Eastern Time. Welcome back and thank you for joining us, Christina.
Christina Brown: Thanks, Kelly. It’s always a pleasure.
Kelly: It’s always great to have you here. So, let’s go ahead and jump in. So, reimbursement updates is a pretty broad topic. Can you give us an idea of what you’re going to be discussing in the webinar?
Christina: Yeah, that’s very true, Kelly. So, this is a pretty broad topic, but we do find it’s a good one. Just to recap a few of the happenings within the reimbursement community from the year. For starters, an update wouldn’t be complete without some discussion around the IPPS and OPPS rulings. So, I’ll touch on a few key updates from the CMS-released rulings as it relates to the IPPS and OPPS. We also saw some form updates. For example, an older update would be the SNF 2540-10 is now the 2524. This year, we’ve also seen some transmittal updates for the 2552-10 and the 287-22, which I will also touch on some things to know as it relates to those transmittals. And lastly, I plan to visit content from a few of our webinars this year in case anyone wants to go back and view those on demand.
Kelly: Well, yeah, I know you’re going to cover quite a bit in that webinar. You mentioned the IPPS and OPPS rules. Will these be the final or the proposed rules?
Christina: So, Kelly, that’s actually a very interesting question. So, as we know, the IPPS Final Rule was released on July 31st of this year. So for that one, that one’s definitely going to be the final rule. Bob also did a full webinar on that earlier this year. I think it was in September he did that, but that one you can see on demand. That one will go really in depth. I’m just really going to touch on a few of the key highlights on that one. As for the OPPS ruling, we did see a proposed rule in July, and we did expect to see a final rule in the beginning of November.
Now, I did check this morning and I found there was a publication on November 5th for the physician fee schedule. So, I’m optimistic that we’re actually going to see a final rule soon on the CMS website for the OPPS. But again, we suspect that probably the government shutdown has impacted that quite a bit. But I’ll keep a lookout until the webinar and just see if there’s anything that I can provide as an update from the proposed to the final. But I would encourage everyone to tune in to our webinar later this year that Bob’s going to do on the OPPS Final Rule.
Kelly: Most definitely, we have some great webinars coming up still for this year. So can you tell us a little bit more about those transmittal updates?
Christina: Sure. So, transmittal updates happen periodically to make mostly minor and sometimes not so minor changes to the cost report forms and instructions. This is caused by updates to rules. As I previously discussed, it could be caused by litigation changes and for things as minor as clarification purposes on the instructions. As a CMS-approved vendor on the 2552-10 and the 28722, we have actually sometimes triggered updates as a result of questions that we ask on the forms. So, when we’re asking for clarification on things. I really see these transmittal updates as adjustments to a form, or in some cases, maybe band-aids until a new iteration of the form is released.
For example, the acute care hospital cost report Form 2552-10 is now actually on its 24th transmittal. It had transmittal 23 a little earlier in the year, but again, we just got transmittal 24 in September. It has actually been rumored that this form is due for a new iteration soon, although CMS has not committed to us when that is going to be, but we’ll let you know as soon as we find out. The 287-22 is actually a new iteration from the 287-05. But that being said, the Home Office is actually now on its fifth transmittal. So, during the webinar, I’m going to go over some of these latest changes with the transmittals.
Kelly: Yeah, we appreciate those updates because I know they change fairly often. So you mentioned the skilled nursing facility cost report form, 2540-24. Will you also be discussing this form?
Christina: Yes, sure. So, I’m actually going to touch on this form as there was an update from the 2540-10 to the 2540-24. However, the chances are actually pretty good if you submit a skilled nursing facility cost report, then you are already well acquainted with this form and its updates. However, since we actually didn’t do a webinar on this topic this year, I thought this might be a good opportunity for us to briefly touch on some of the changes for those that may not be as well acquainted with that form.
Kelly: Great. Well, we appreciate those updates. In your previous reimbursement update webinars, you provided some key takeaways, including recaps of other webinars. And you mentioned you’d like to do that again in this webinar. Can you tell us more?
Christina: Sure. So, as you mentioned, I have done a recap in the past on recent webinars with this reimbursement updates webinar. I think this is probably our third iteration of reimbursement updates. And I do feel that this is a great thing for me to end on as well. So, I do plan on doing that. However, I’m not going to go into the details of each, but I will provide some topical subject matter from a few of our webinars this year that might be of interest to our listeners. And as usual, you can expect links in the related content to each of these should you find them of interest and want to watch them on demand. While there will be no CPEs that are going to be available for those, the subject matter is really a great free educational tool that we do provide on our website.
Kelly: Yeah, we love that. Thank you so much, Christina. And thank you for joining us and giving us this sneak peek into BESLER’s upcoming webinar, Reimbursement Updates 2025, that we’re presenting live on Wednesday, November 19, at 1 PM Eastern Time. And as a bonus, you can earn CPE. Thanks again, Christina.
Christina: Thanks so much, Kelly.
Kelly: And thank you all for joining us for this episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. Until next time…
[music] This concludes today’s episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. For show notes and additional resources to help you protect and enhance revenue at your hospital, visit besler.com/podcasts. The Hospital Finance Podcast is a production of BESLER | SMART ABOUT REVENUE, TENACIOUS ABOUT RESULTS.
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