Medicare Program; Changes to the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems for Acute Care Hospitals and Fiscal Year 2010 Rates; and Changes to the Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System and Rate Years 2010 and 2009 Rates

We are revising the Medicare hospital inpatient prospective payment systems (IPPS) for operating and capital-related costs of acute care hospitals to implement changes arising from our continuing experience with these systems, and to implement certain provisions made by the TMA, Abstinence Education, and QI Program Extension Act of 2007, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In addition, in the Addendum to this final rule, we describe the changes to the amounts and factors used to determine the rates for Medicare acute care hospital inpatient services for operating costs and capital-related costs. These changes are applicable to discharges occurring on or after October 1, 2009. We also are setting forth the update to the rate-of-increase limits for certain hospitals excluded from the IPPS that are paid on a reasonable cost basis subject to these limits. The updated rate-of- increase limits are effective for cost reporting periods beginning on or after October 1, 2009. Second, we are updating the payment policy and the annual payment rates for the Medicare prospective payment system (PPS) for inpatient hospital services provided by long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) for rate year (RY) 2010, including responding to public comments received on a June 3, 2009 supplemental proposed rule relating to the proposed RY 2010 Medicare Severity Long-Term Care Diagnosis-Related Groups (MS-LTC- DRG) relative weights and the proposed RY 2010 high-cost outlier (HCO) fixed-loss amount. In the Addendum to this final rule, we also set forth the changes to the payment rates, factors, and other payment rate policies under the LTCH PPS for RY 2010. These changes are applicable to discharges occurring on or after October 1, 2009. In addition, we are responding to public comments received on and finalizing a June 3, 2009 interim final rule with comment period that revised the MS-LTC-DRG relative weights for pa