AUC Program Gets an Early Thanksgiving Style Pardon
Published on
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Did You Know?
CMS announced in the CY 2024 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Final Rule, effective January 1, 2024 that they are pausing their efforts to implement the Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) Program for reevaluation and rescinding the AUC regulations at 42 CFR 414.94, reserving this section for future use.
Why It Matters?
On November 3, 2023, CMS posted the following notice on the AUC Program webpage:
“Effective January 1, 2024, providers and suppliers should no longer include AUC consultation information on Medicare FFS claims. Additionally, CMS will no longer qualify PLEs or CDSMs and will remove this information from the AUC website. The claims processing instructions and guidance for the educational and operations testing period will also be removed.”
What Can I Do?
Share this information with the appropriate stakeholders at your facility and consider this an early Thanksgiving blessing that CMS acknowledged the challenges to implementing the regulations at 42 CFR 414.94.
Article Author: Beth Cobb, RN, BSN, ACM, CCDS
Beth Cobb, RN, BSN, ACM, CCDS, is the Manager of Clinical Analytics at Medical Management Plus, Inc. Beth has over twenty-five years of experience in healthcare including eleven years in Case Management at a large multi-facility health system. In her current position, Beth is a principle writer for MMP’s Wednesday@One weekly e-newsletter, an active member of our HIPAA Compliance Committee, MMP’s Education Department Program Director and co-developer of MMP’s proprietary Compliance Protection Assessment Tool.
