CMS clarifies 2015 ancillary services packaging policy for ASCs

CMS included a summary of the ancillary services packaging policy in its 2015 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment/Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems Final Rule. That summary stated CMS had:…finalized its proposal to package the technical component of select ancillary services, including many anatomic pathology services, into a single unified payment for services provided in hospital outpatient departments or free-standing ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs). CMS has now clarified that the packaging policy only applied to surgical procedures performed in hospital outpatient departments and not those performed in free-standing ASCs. They referred to pages 66806 and 66923-66925 in Volume 79 of the Federal Register, which discuss this issue.