Outpatient total knees. CMS is seeking public comments on
whether it should remove total knee arthroplasty (CPT 27447)
from the inpatient-only list. CMS wants to know how often the proce-
dure is performed on non-Medicare patients in an HOPD or ASC set-
ting.
Not tying pain meds to reimbursement. CMS wants to remove pain
management questions from its patient satisfaction surveys (which
impact CMS's hospital payment scoring calculation) beginning in
2018, in the hope that it will also remove the financial pressure clini-
cians may feel to overprescribe pain medications.
OSM
8
Coding & Billing
CB
3 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A Y 2 0 1 6
