Title: AND ON THE 8TH DAY, GOD CREATED THE Centers for Medicare
1AND ON THE 8TH DAY, GOD CREATED THE
Centers for Medicare medicaid services (CMS)
2- And then, it was decided that CMS should have a
payment provision for Teaching Hospitals called
Graduate Medical Education (or GME) - The GME reimbursement mechanism was born and
split into two components Direct (DGME) and
Indirect (IME)
3Why the religious connotation?
- Im not a preacher man trapped in a Finance
persons body - I dont want any one of us struck down by
lightening - So its simple really CMS giveths CMS
takeths away
4What Payers fund GME costs?
- MEDICARE (federal program for the aged
disabled) - MEDICAID (federal state program for the
financially challenged) - TRICARE (federal program for active retired
military)
5What is the Funding specifically for?
- DGME funding is for Intern Resident
compensation, Faculty Supervision, GME Office
Admin costs Hospital overhead - IME funding is to recognize a hospitals higher
operating costs that result from teaching
activities
6WHY DO WE GET THIS FUNDING?
- CMS realizes that teaching hospitals incur more
costs than non-teaching hospitals and feels an
obligation to pay THEIR share - They also realize that without teaching
hospitals, future doctors would not have real
life training grounds to perfect their skills
7WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT THIS TOPIC - PART I?
- We receive approximately 33.3M A YEAR in
Graduate Medical Education funding from the
Medicare program alone - 11.0M for Direct Graduate Medical Education
(DGME) costs and 22.3M for Indirect Medical
Education (IME) costs
8WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT THIS TOPIC - PART II?
- CMS also gives to State Medicaid programs
approximately 50 of their Educational cost
obligation - That amount can be approximately 15.0M more A
YEAR than mentioned on the previous slide
9Why do we care about this topic - Part III?
- Some States, Virginia being one of them, matches
the Federal GME contribution and doles out
another 15.0M for a total of 30.0M - Medicaid takes the combined funds and distributes
those dollars to us as DGME (approx 7.7M) IME
(approx 22.3M)
10GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS
- Good News its nice that CMS funds their share
of the additional costs of being a teaching
hospital - Bad News Even with the additional funding of
Graduate Medical Education by CMS, Hospitals
still LOSE LOTS of on their Medicare business
11GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS PART II
- Good News the Medicaid GME funding helps get us
reimbursed at nearly 100 of our costs of
providing Medicaid services - Bad News it only helps us to get to nearly 100
of our costs no profit margin
12What does Tricare pay for GME?
- Very little but its because we have a very low
Tricare utilization (business) - GME Funding from this source is approximately
.8M annually (DGME only, no IME) - As a result of this scant funding, we will
largely focus on Medicare Medicaid funding
13How are the Resident FTE counts done for DGME?
- New Innovations (may sound familiar)
- Residents may be weighted meaning some can only
count as half an FTE, one can never be more than
an FTE - Examples Residents that switch residencies, do
a second residency or do a fellowship - Resident time is allowed for patient care,
didactics or research while rotating in the
hospital, up to a programs initial residency
period - Resident can be claimed in a non-provider setting
but research time is excluded
14The FTE CAPS
- Based on FY96s Cost Report, CMS established FTE
CAPs for both DGME IME (idea limit how much
CMS had to pay for growing GME programs) - For DGME, CMS took all the weighted countable
FTEs of that year and unweighted them (i.e.
made them a full FTE) to come up with a CAP of
401.51
15FTE CAPS Part II
- The DGME unweighted FTE CAP is then compared
every year to the unweighted FTE count of the
current year and that ratio is applied to the
current years weighted FTE count - The IME FTE CAP (since no one is weighted) is
much simpler it came from the FY96 Cost Report
and is 367.72
16FTE CAPS Part III
- Hospital Based Dental Residencies are excluded
from both DGME IME CAPS - Affiliated Agreements with other hospitals that
are under their FTE CAPS help hospitals that are
over their CAPS by allowing more GME
reimbursement to be claimed (Example Howard
University Hospital)
17DGME Formulary Components
- FTE counts according to DGME counting rules,
broken down into Primary Care Non-Primary Care
FTEs - Three Year Rolling Average (Current, Prior
Penultimate) - Per Resident Amounts (PRA) established in 1985
for each teaching hospital based on their Direct
teaching costs and increased each year for
inflation - To encourage Teaching Hospitals to produce more
primary care doctors, a higher PRA was given to
that group versus groups considered non-primary
care - MCR FFS MCO Inpatient Utilizations (Patient
Days)
18Medicare DGME Formula Part I
- (Very Simplified)
- of FTEs rotating at hospital 395
- (3 year rolling avg, Dental Cap Adj)
- Blended Per Resident Amount 88,753
- Subtotal 35,057,435
Medicare FFS Utilization .2564
Medicare FFS DGME Pmt 8,988,726
19Medicare DGME Formula Part II
- (Awarded Slots - MMA)
- of DGME Slots Awarded 18.21
- Claimable Slots After Formulary 16.38
- Natl Avg Per Resident Amt 86,993
- Subtotal
1,424,945 Medicare FFS Utilization
.2564 Medicare FFS DGME Payment 365,356 - Medicare MCO Utilization .0463
- Medicare MCO DGME Payment 65,975
20Medicare DGME Formula Part III
- (Medicare Managed Care Organizations)
- of FTEs rotating at hospital 395
- (3 year rolling avg, Dental Cap Adj)
- Per Resident Amount 88,753
- Subtotal 35,057,435
Medicare MCO Utilization .0463
Medicare MCO DGME Pmt 1,623,159
21Total MCR DGME Reimbursement
- MCR FFS Payment - 8,988,726
- MCR MMA FFS Payment 365,356
- MCR MMA MCO Payment 65,975
- MCR MCO Payment 1,623,159
- Total MCR DGME Payment 11,043,216
22To see Actual DGME Calculations
- The DGME Formularies are found on a teaching
hospitals Medicare Cost Report, Worksheet E-3,
Part IV, Lines 3.01 - 25 AND Worksheet E-3, Part
VI, Lines 5 - 12
23GME Salary Benefits, FY11
- IR Salary Benefits - 39,152,007
- Refunds from hospitals - 7,334,825
- Net VCUHS IR Costs - 31,817,182
- This is one component of CMSs view of a
hospitals DGME costs
24Federal Regulations
- There have been a lot over the years, a lot of
acronyms such as BBA, BBRA, BIPA, MMA and most
recently ACA (Affordable Care Act) - Discussion of all these would need to be its own
presentation but suffice it to say, all these
regulations were intended to cut GME funding in
some way, shape or form
25Most Relevant GME Regulations
- FTE Caps were established for both DGME IME
counts to limit payments in case teaching
hospitals expanded their programs (BBA97) - The IME Federal Formulary began undergoing
significant alterations all negative which
began with the BBA and goes thru todays ACA - Clarifications on what residents can be doing and
where they can be doing it in order to be counted
for either DGME or IME
26Examples of a Clarification Part I
- ACA Regulation for DGME counts
- In the Hospital, Resident can be counted for
doing patient care, vacation/sick, didactic
research - In a Non-hospital/Provider Setting, resident can
be doing all of the above with the exception of
research. Didactics was just recently clarified
as allowed effective 7/1/09. Prior to that, it
was not allowed.
27Examples of a Clarification Part II
- ACA Regulation for IME counts
- In the Hospital, a resident can be counted for
doing patient care, vacation/sick, didactic.
Research time however CANNOT be counted effective
10/1/01 no word on if it could have counted
prior to 10/1/01 - In a Non-hospital/Provider Setting, a resident
can only be counted while doing patient care or
vacation/sick. Didactics and Research are NOT
countable time.
28IME Formulary Components
- FTEs according to the IME rules clarifications
- Three Year Rolling Average
- Acute Bed Days Available (number of staffed beds
in acute areas of the hospital times the number
of days they are open in a year divided by 365
days) - DRG (inpatient) payments on FFS MCO
29Medicare IME Formula Part I
- of IME IR (cap adj dental 3 yr avg)
404.66 - Acute Bed Days Available
629.88 - IRB Ratio
.642446 - Plus 1.00
1.642446 - Power to .405
1.222570 - Minus 1.00
.222570 - Times 1.35 (IME Factor)
.300470 - MCR FFS DRG payments
66,324,839 MCR FFS IME payment (Factor X DRG)
19,928,632
30Medicare IME Formula Part II
- (Awarded Slots - MMA)
- of IME CAP Slots
3.02 - Acute Bed Days Available
629.88 - IRB Ratio
.004795 - Plus 1.00
1.004795 - Power to .405
1.001939 - Minus 1.00
.001939 - Times .66 (IME Factor)
.001280 - MCR FFS DRG payments
66,324,839 MCR FFS IME payment (Factor X DRG)
84,880
31Medicare IME Formula Part III
- (Medicare MCOs / Shadow Bills)
- of IME IR (cap adj dental 3 yr avg)
404.66 - Acute Bed Days Available
629.88 - IRB Ratio
.642446 - Plus 1.00
1.642446 - Power to .405
1.222570 - Minus 1.00
.222570 - Times 1.35 (IME Factor)
.300470 - MCR FFS DRG payments on MCO Cases 7,510,320
MCR IME pmt for MCOs (Factor X DRG) 2,256,626
32Total MCR IME Reimbursement
- MCR FFS Payment - 19,928,632
- MCR MMA Payment 84,880
- MCR MCO Payment 2,256,626 Total MCR
IME Payment 22,270,138
33To see Actual IME Calculations
- The IME Formularies are found on a teaching
hospitals Medicare Cost Report, Worksheet E Part
A, Lines 3 3.24 AND Worksheet E-3, Part VI,
Lines 16 - 23
34CONCLUSION
- Although we receive millions of dollars for GME
costs, it only represents a portion of our
overall teaching costs - Despite these additional payments from our
governmental payers, we still lose significant
money on Medicare Tricare business and only
receive up to our costs on Medicaid business - When the Federal government is looking to either
save money or be budget neutral for a new
Program, you can bet that GME will always be up
on the proverbial Chopping Block
35QUESTIONS???
- C. Todd Gardner / Acacia Pulliam
- Dept of Reimbursement, VCUHS
- 828.4733 or 827.5374