Bloomberg BNA quoted Manatt’s Cindy Mann, a partner with Manatt Health, in an article about the CMS’s plans to phase out pass-through payments as it transitions to value-based payments. Under the final regulations published in May 2016, the CMS will put limits on pass-through payments and eventually phase out states' ability to use the payments by 2022 or 2027, depending on the type.
The guidance serves notice that the agency intends to change those regulations, Mann told Bloomberg BNA. “They were clear in the regulations that you could do a new payment,” she said. The guidance is “rethinking the policy… It was a temporary arrangement, but now the prospect is that it’s even shorter than the five-year or 10-year phaseout they had anticipated” under the regulations, Mann said.