Advocacy

On November 17, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce unanimously passed H.R. 5561, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act. This bipartisan legislation reauthorizes and provides new funding for the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The AAO-HNS has long-supported full funding for the EHDI program, which supports statewide plans that identify infants/children with hearing loss and provides the appropriate early intervention services. The Academy will continue its advocacy efforts with Congressional champions and the hearing health community on passage of this important legislation.

On November 10, CMS announced it will apply the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) automatic extreme and uncontrollable circumstances (EUC) policy to all individually MIPS eligible clinicians (ECs) for the 2021 performance year. The automatic EUC policy only applies to MIPS clinicians participating as individuals, it does not apply to groups, virtual groups, or Alternative Payment Model (APM) entities. Individual ECs do not need to take any action. CMS will automatically identify them and reweight all four MIPS performance categories to 0%. This means individual ECs will receive a neutral payment adjustment for the 2023 MIPS payment year, unless they submit data for two or more categories or have a higher final score from group or APM entity participation.

On November 2, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule implementing changes to the Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program for 2022. The regulation includes new values for hypoglossal nerve stimulation and drug-induced sleep endoscopy, procedures commonly performed by otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeons. The agency heeded the Academy’s concerns regarding proposed updates to clinical labor pricing. In the final rule, CMS opted to phase in the changes over a four-year period. CMS also revised its proposals on critical care services. The agency will not bundle the services with other unrelated procedures next year. As expected, the 2022 fee schedule does not address the scheduled 9.75% cut to all physician services effective January 1, 2022. The AAO-HNS will continue to urge Congress to seek immediate action to reverse these cuts before the end of the year as well as to address long-term solutions for physician payment reform.