The Proposed Rule for Calendar Year 2018 is to be Published on the Federal Register on July 20, 2017
folder_openFinal/Proposed Rulescalendar_todayPosted July 14, 2017

The Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems and Quality Reporting Programs Proposed Rule is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on July 20, 2017. A preview (or “unpublished” version) of the Proposed Rule is available through the link provided here.

In this proposed rule, CMS proposes to delay implementation of the Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (OAS CAHPS) Survey Based Measures OP-37a-e/ASC-15a-e beginning with the CY 2020 payment determination (2018 data collection) until further action in future CMS rulemaking.  CMS will continue to analyze the national implementation data and consider any necessary modifications to the survey tool and/or CMS systems. 

CMS continues to believe that these measures address an area of care that is not adequately addressed in the current measure set and will be useful to assess aspects of care where the patient is the best or only source of information. These measures will enable objective and meaningful comparisons between hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery centers.

If you have questions, you can contact the OAS CAHPS Survey Coordination Team via e-mail at oascahps@rti.org or call 1-866-590-7468.