Kara Cronan

ISASS and Other Provider Organizations Urge Congress to Include Physician Liability Protections in COVID-19 Relief Legislation On June 2, 2020, multiple organizations, including ISASS, sent a letter to Congressional leadership urging them to include liability protections for physicians in the next COVID-19 relief package—particularly the protections that are included in the bipartisan bill, H.R. 7059, the “Coronavirus Provider Protection Act.” H.R. 7059 was introduced May 29, 2020, by Reps. Phil Roe, MD (R-TN), and Lou Correa (D-CA) and is scheduled to be voted on by the House of Representatives and the US Senate in the coming weeks. ISASS will continue to provide updates on federal legislation extending financial relief to physicians and physician practices affected by the COVID-19 emergency. Read […]

ISASS Supports Letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Requesting Elimination of Budget Neutrality Adjustments to Physician Payments for 2020 On June 30, 2020, multiple organizations, including ISASS, sent a letter to Alex Azar, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to remove budget neutrality negative adjustments under the 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. The organizations indicated support for the actions of the CMS in last year’s Medicare physician payment final rule to utilize the American Medical Association (AMA) Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Editorial Panel coding framework, and AMA Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) recommended values for office and outpatient visits starting January 1, 2021. The framework was the result of […]

CMS Releases 2021 ICD-10 Procedure Codes for Facility Coding On June 9, 2020, CMS released updated codes in the 2021 ICD-10-Procedure Coding System (PCS). These new codes include surgical procedures for the spine used by many facilities in which ISASS surgeons operate. These new codes will allow greater tracking and appropriate payment for spine surgery technologies. The new codes will be in effect from October 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021, and were announced in the 2021 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Final Rule in June 2020. Visit the CMS website for the full list of ICD-10-PCS codes and for more information: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/icd-10/2021-icd-10-pcs