by Cheryl Nash
Perhaps you have heard of the big news coming from Medicare this past few weeks; July is the month that CMS releases their Proposed Rule for the following year. This rule includes the highly anticipated, and sometimes dreaded, changes to the PFS.
In recent history the changes have boded ill for most providers as the proposals have contained shrinking reimbursements for professional services during a climate of increasing practice costs.
Not this year! Medicare has added an increase to the conversion factor roughly averaging 3.6%. Please be aware that there is a lot that goes into these calculations and the increase percent may be slightly higher or lower dependent on many varying factors. Suffice to say, any increase is good news!
The proposal will go through a 60 day comment period prior to finalizing in November. There are several other updates that are intriguing including extending the virtual supervision rule put into place during the PHE, changes to how skin-substitutes are reimbursed, and the ever-evolving guidelines surrounding telehealth.
You can look over the CMS press release here https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/calendar-year-cy-2026-medicare-physician-fee-schedule-pfs-proposed-rule-cms-1832-p Information for submitting comments can also be found in the fact sheet.